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A. 9 

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PIPPA PASSES 

A DRAMA 



AMONG 


THE GREAT MASTERS 


By 


Walter E. Rowlands 


Among the Great Masters of Literature 


Among the Great Masters of Music 


Among the Great Masters of Painting 


Among the Great Masters of Oratory 


i2mo, handsome cover design, boxed separately or 


in sets 


DANA ESTES & COMPANY 


Publishers 


Estes Press, 212 Summer Street, Boston 



-J. 



im 



f» 
I 



















II M 



. " Ah, the clear morning ! I can see Saint Mark's ' ' 
Photogravure. From drawing by Louis Meynelle. 



I 



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i 



■ xA o1j 



p^/vX 



I DEDICATE 

MY BEST INTENTIONS, IN THIS POEM, 

ADMIRINGLY TO 

THE AUTHOR OF "ION," 

AFFECTIONATELY TO 

f&x. Sergeant CalfnurK 

R. 
London, 1841 



INTRODUCTION 

" Pippa Passes" was published in 1841, 
occupying the initial number of " Bells and 
Pomegranates," and was first reprinted in the 
"Poems" of 1849. Mr. Gosse says that 
the general public was first won to Browning 
by this drama. Certainly the play still re- 
mains one of the most popular of the poet's 
works. 

The idea of " Pippa Passes " came to Brown- 
ing one day in his youth while he was wan- 
dering through Dulwich Wood. He heard 
a gipsy-girl singing, and imagined some one 
"walking thus alone through life; one ap- 
parently too obscure to leave a trace of his 
or her passage, yet exercising a lasting though 
unconscious influence at every step." The 
image took the shape of Felippa, or Pippa, 
the little silk-winding girl of Asolo. No- 



viii Introduction 

where in literature, probably, can be found a 
more effective illustration of the Biblical text, 
" A little child shall lead them." 

The drama is a moral tonic. Even if a 
reader could be found with the obtuseness 
or hardihood to deny its brilliant workman- 
ship, he would be forced to admit its whole- 
some atmosphere and profound ethical motive. 
The latter is summed up in Pippa's songs : 

" All service ranks the same with God," 
and 

" God's in His heaven, — 
All's right with the world ! " 

The play will not yield half its beauties at 
first reading. The person whose favorite 
poets are Longfellow and Mrs. Hemans 
may even think it very difficult in places ; 
yet it is not at all obscure. It simply de- 
mands, like all of Browning's writings, 
exceedingly close attention. " Pippa Passes " 
is a book to read, re-read, study, and love. 



Introduction ix 

Browning himself, it will be remembered, dis- 
claimed all intention of furnishing intellectual 
amusement for an idle man. He thinks so 
swiftly that it is never easy to follow him 
without concentration of mind ; his thoughts 
reach so high into the empyrean that they 
are sometimes cloud-capped. 

Yet a little hard climbing is tremendously 
rewarding. What a view from the summit ! 
All human nature lies before us in panorama, 
and of no one of Browning's works is this 
truer than of " Pippa Passes." " Its mental 
basis," says Sharp, "what Rossetti called 
'fundamental brain-work,' is as luminous, 
depth within depth, as the morning air. By 
its side the more obviously profound poems, 
' Bishop Blougram ' and the rest, are mere 
skilled dialectics." The clarity as well as 
profundity of the drama is also emphasized 
by Mr. Stedman, who calls it "the most 
simple and varied of Browning's plays — that 
which shows every side of his genius, has 



x Introduction 

most lightness and strength, and, all in all, 
may be termed a representative poem." Mr. 
William Vaughan Moody has recently char- 
acterized it still more unequivocally as " that 
perfect fruit of Browning's youthful imagina- 
tion." 

"Pippa Passes" is less properly a drama 
than, to quote Mr. William Sharp, " a lyrical 
masque with interspersed dramatic episodes 
and subsidiary interludes in prose." It is 
hardly necessary to read a dozen lines in 
order to be convinced that the play is essen- 
tially unactable. There is no verisimilitude 
in the speech of the little silk-winding girl ; 
she uses language quite beyond the range, 
or even the conception, of a peasant. The 
whole drama is surcharged with the imagina- 
tive language of pure poetry. Yet the per- 
sonages — while they do not always talk in 
character — are not the poet himself mas- 
querading. They are strongly conceived, 
individual, and consistent. It would seem, 



Introduction xi 

therefore, as though their manner of speech 
were due to some original theory of art en- 
tertained by the author, rather than to care- 
lessness or ignorance. Browning deliberately 
sets out, it would appear, to disregard the 
mere verity of facts in the interest of a 
higher truth. If he abandons the actual 
dialect of a mill-girl, he still expresses only 
such emotions as she might easily have had. 
It is not photography ; it is the real reach- 
ing out into the ideal ; the prose of fact 
married to the poetry of imagination. 
Browning sets free the pent-up emotions in 
the dumb little heart, and demonstrates 
that he knows the child better even than 
she knows herself. 

But there are other reasons besides this 
departure from commonplace verisimilitude, 
which make this a reading drama rather than 
a stage drama. The action lacks the unity 
of a strongly executed plot. The leading 
groups of characters are scarcely acquainted 



xii Introduction 

with the fact of each other's existence. There 
is no sub-plot or subtle interweaving of mo- 
tives, and the main episodes themselves touch 
without cohering. The principal Dramatis 
Personce are connected in the reader's mind 
only because the life of each is influenced by 
the singing of Pippa. Never was a play 
which escaped actual incoherence so episodi- 
cal and loosely strung. 

A still further objection to " Pippa Passes " 
as a stage play lies in the fact that of the 
four chief episodes three are fragmentary. 
What do we know respecting the fate of 
Luigi? What of the future of Jules and 
Phene ? We do not learn even when or in 
what manner the Bishop will see Pippa re- 
stored to her rights. "Pippa Passes" is 
assuredly a production of great brilliancy 
and of extraordinary charm, but a successful 
play in any conventional sense it can hardly 
be called. It is a lyrical drama or a dramatic 
poem. 



Introduction xiii 

" Pippa Passes " is a group of four scenes, 
together with a prologue, three interludes, 
and an epilogue. The first two interludes 
and the fourth scene are in prose. Half a 
dozen beautiful songs are interspersed 
throughout the play. 

The characterization is varied in the ex- 
treme. The persons who figure in the action 
include street-girls, students, police officers, 
a Catholic bishop, a sculptor, a wealthy land- 
owner, and a young Italian conspirator. The 
real heroine, of course, is — 

" Pippa, who winds silk, 
The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk." 

We are introduced to her in her garret cham- 
ber on the dawn of New Year's Day, her 
one holiday in the year. She springs out of 
bed at sunrise with the resolution to enjoy 
to the full the day of unaccustomed leisure. 
She is tempted to envy a little the fortunate 
ones of Asolo whose holiday is continuous 



xiv Introduction 

throughout the year : " Great haughty Ot- 
tima," who has the passionate homage of her 
lover, Sebald ; Jules, the artist, who is about 
to wed Phene, a young girl of wonderful 
beauty ; Luigi and his mother, " unmatched 
... for true content," and Monsignor, the 
Bishop, "that holy and beloved priest," who 
is expected from Rome to visit his brother's 
home at Asolo. Pippa crowds down her 
temptation to envious feeling, however, and 
reflecting that God's love is best after all, 
goes forth from her chamber with a light- 
hearted song to enjoy her New Year's holi- 
day. Now it happens that " Asolo' s four 
happiest ones " are in grave moral peril, and 
as they reach respectively the very crisis of 
their spiritual destiny, Pippa passes, all un- 
consciously, with a song on her lips which is 
perfectly adapted to awaken the conscience 
of the tempted soul and strengthen its waver- 
ing choice of right. All of these folk whom 
the silk-winding girl has thought so far 



Introduction xv 

above her are saved from the danger which 
threatens them, and their lives are vitally- 
changed through her humble influence. When 
evening comes Pippa climbs to her bare room 
with a final happy song and falls asleep with- 
out the least suspicion that her life or words 
have been of interest or service to any one. 

The other characters of the play offer 
strong contrasts : Ottima, " magnificent in 
sin," is a woman of courageous, independent 
personality, wholly given over to a guilty 
passion. Her aged and infirm husband, Luca, 
has been killed by her lover, Sebald, and 
herself, and Sebald is just suffering from a 
new-born remorse. Ottima has all but suc- 
ceeded in winning him back by her blandish- 
ments when Pippa passes, singing " God's in 
his heaven," and the man's disillusionment 
is complete. Their conversation on the hill- 
side, with its tragic ending, is justly pro- 
nounced by the editors of the Camberwell 
Browning, "one of the most tremendous 



xvi Introduction 

scenes in all literature." Especially mar- 
vellous is the passage recalling the thunder- 
storm in the forest, — " Buried in woods we 
lay, you recollect." There is nothing finer 
in the whole range of modern poetry. 

Jules, the artist, is the victim of a savage 
practical joke, played upon him by his rival 
artists, who envy and hate him. They have 
decoyed him into a love affair with a beauti- 
ful paid model, whom they have thrown in 
his way, and whom he thinks to be possessed 
of ideal purity. He has no sooner married 
her than he discovers the imposture, and is 
about to cast her off when Pippa passes sing- 
ing the lovely song of Queen Katharine's 
page. He instantly changes his purpose, 
and resolves to awaken the latent soul of the 
ignorant girl, who has been a party to the 
deception, and finally decides to seek a new 
future with his bride in her land of Greece. 

Luigi is a young Italian patriot, who con- 
ceives it to be his mission to kill the Emperor 



Introduction xvii 

of Austria. He has an evening meeting with 
his mother in a turret on the hillside near 
Asolo. His mother endeavors to dissuade 
him from his purpose, and he is about to 
yield on being reminded of the proposed visit 
of his betrothed in June ; but Pippa passes at 
this moment, and her song strengthens his 
wavering courage. He leaves the tower, 
and thus escapes the police who have been 
watching him. 

Monsignor the Bishop has an interview 
with his superintendent in the palace by the 
Duomo regarding the estate of the Bishop's 
late brother, which the ecclesiastic covets for 
himself. Now it happens that Pippa, though 
all unknown to herself, is the daughter of 
the deceased brother, and thus the real heir- 
ess of the estate. Maffeo tempts the Bishop 
to remove the girl from his path, and explains 
the trap already set for her ruin, soliciting 
Monsignor's acquiescence in the plot. The 
Bishop hesitates, torn between duty and 



xviii Introduction 

covetousness, when Pippa passes, and her 
song stabs his conscience. He has his evil 
counsellor arrested and punished. By what 
has truly been called "a beautiful piece of 
dramatic justice," Pippa is shown to have 
saved herself through having saved the 
Bishop. 

Boston^ Jttly ig, igo2. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

11 Ah, the clear morning ! I can see Saint 

Mark's" (page 27) . . . Frontispiece 

" Worship whom else ? For am I not, this day, 
Whate'er I please ? " 17 

" I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now, and now ! 

This way " 43 

" You by me, 
And I by you ; this is your hand in mine, 
And side by side we sit " 62 

"Oh, you may come closer — we shall not eat 

you!" 112 

" Overhead the treetops meet, 

Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet " . 126 



PERSONS 

PlPPA. 

Ottima. 

Sebald. 

Foreign Students. 

Gottlieb. 

Schramm. 

Jules. 

Phene. 

Austrian Police. 

Bluphocks. 

Luigi and his Mother. 

Poor Girls. 

Monsignor and his Attendants. 



PIPPA PASSES 

A DRAMA 



New-Year's Day at Asolo in the Trevisan. — 
A large, mean, airy chamber. A girl, Pippa, 
from the silk-mills, springing out of bed. 

Day! 

Faster and more fast, 

O'er night's brim, day boils at last ; 

Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim 

Where spurting and suppressed it lay : 5 

For not a froth-flake touched the rim 

Of yonder gap in the solid gray 

Of the eastern cloud, an hour away ; 

But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, 

Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, 



12 Pippa Passes 

Rose, reddened, and its seething breast TI 
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then over- 
flowed the world. 

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, 
A mite of my twelve hours' treasure, 
The least of thy gazes or glances 1 5 

(Be they grants thou art bound to, or gifts 

above measure), 
One of thy choices, or one of thy chances 
(Be they tasks God imposed thee, or freaks 

at thy pleasure) — 
My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure, 
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me ! 

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flow- 
ing, 21 

Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and 
good — 

Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going, 

In which earth turns from work in gamesome 
mood — 



Pippa Passes 13 

All shall be mine ! But thou must treat me 

not 25 

As the prosperous are treated, those who 

live 
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot, 
In readiness to take what thou wilt give, 
And free to let alone what thou refusest ; 
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest 3° 

Me, who am only Pippa — old-year's sorrow, 
Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow : 
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow 
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's 

sorrow. 
All other men and women that this earth 35 
Belongs to, who all days alike possess, 
Make general plenty cure particular dearth, 
Get more joy one way, if another less : 
Thou art my single day God lends to leaven 
What were all earth else with a feel of 

heaven ; 4° 

Sole light that helps me through the year, 

thy sun's ! 



14 Pippa Passes 

Try, now! Take Asolo's Four Happiest 
Ones — 

And let thy morning rain on that superb 

Great haughty Ottima, can rain disturb 

Her Sebald's homage ? All the while thy 
rain 45 

Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window- 
pane, 

He will but press the closer, breathe more 
warm 

Against her cheek ; how should she mind the 
storm ? 

And, morning past, if midday shed a gloom 

O'er Jules and Phene, what care bride and 
groom 5° 

Save for their dear selves ? 'Tis their mar- 
riage-day ; 

And while they leave church, and go home 
their way 

Hand clasping hand, within each breast would 
be 

Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee. 



Pippa Passes 15 

Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve 55 
With mist, will Luigi and his mother grieve — 
The lady and her child, unmatched, forsooth, 
She in her age, as Luigi in his youth, 
For true content ? The cheerful town, 

warm, close, 
And safe, the sooner that thou art morose, 
Receives them ! And yet once again, out- 
break 61 
In storm at night on Monsignor they 

make 
Such stir about — whom they expect from 

Rome 
To visit Asolo, his brothers' home, 
And say here masses proper to release 6 5 
A soul from pain — what storm dares hurt 

his peace ? 
Calm would he pray, with his own thoughts 

to ward 
Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' guard. 
But Pippa — just one such mischance would 

spoil 



1 6 Pippa Passes 

Her day that lightens the next twelvemonth's 
toil 70 

At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil ! 
And here I let time slip for nought ! 
Aha ! you foolhardy sunbeam, caught 
With a single splash from my ewer ! 
You that would mock the best pursuer, 75 
Was my basin overdeep ? 
One splash of water ruins you asleep, 
And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits 
Wheeling and counterwheeling, 
Reeling, broken beyond healing — 80 

Now grow together on the ceiling ! 
That will task your wits. 
Whoever it was quenched fire first, hoped to 

see 
Morsel after morsel flee 

As merrily, as giddily — 8 5 

Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on ? 
Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple ? 
Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon ? 
New-blown and ruddy as Saint Agnes' nipple, 



Worship whom else ? For am I not, this day, 

IVhate'er I please?" 

Photogravure. From drawing by Louis Meynelle. 



Pippa Passes 17 

Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk 
bird's poll! 9° 

Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple 

Of ocean, bud there, fairies watch unroll 

Such turban-flowers ; I say, such lamps 
disperse 

Thick red flame through that dusk green 
universe ! 

I am queen of thee, floweret ; 95 

And each fleshy blossom 

Preserve I not — safer 

Than leaves that embower it, 

Or shells that embosom — 

From weevil and chafer ? 100 

Laugh through my pane, then ; solicit the bee ; 

Gibe him, be sure ; and, in midst of thy glee, 

Love thy queen, worship me ! 

Worship whom else ? For am I not, this 

day, 

Whate'er I please ? What shall I please 

to-day ? 105 



1 8 Pippa Passes 

My morning, noon, eve, night — how spend 

my day ? 
To-morrow I must be Pippa, who winds 

silk, 
The whole year round, to earn just bread 

and milk : 
But, this one day, I have leave to go, 
And play out my fancy's fullest games ; no 
I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 
That I taste of the pleasures, am called by 

the names 
Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo ! 

See ! Up the hillside yonder, through the 

morning, 
Some one shall love me, as the world calls 

love: "5 

I am no less than Ottima, take warning ! 
The gardens, and the great stone house 

above, 
And other house for shrubs, all glass in 

front, 



Pippa Passes 19 

Are mine; where Sebald steals, as he is 

wont, 
To court me, while old Luca yet reposes ; 
And therefore, till the shrub-house door 

uncloses, 121 

I — what now ? — give abundant cause for 

prate 
About me — Ottima, I mean — of late, 
Too bold, too confident she'll still face down 
The spitef ullest of talkers in our town — 
How we talk in the little town below ! I26 

But love, love, love — there's better love, 
I know ! 
This foolish love was only Day's first offer ; 
I choose my next love to defy the scoffer : 
For do not our Bride and Bridegroom sally 
Out of Possagno church at noon ? J3 1 

Their house looks over Orcana valley — 
Why should I not be the bride as soon 
As Ottima ? For I saw, beside, 
Arrive last night that little bride — 135 



20 Pippa Passes 

Saw, if you call it seeing her, one flash 

Of the pale, snow-pure cheek and bright black 

tresses, 
Blacker than all except the black eyelash ; 
I wonder she contrives those lids no dresses ! 
So strict was she, the veil 140 

Should cover close her pale 
Pure cheeks — a bride to look at and scarce 

touch, 
Scarce touch, remember, Jules ! — for are 

not such 
Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature, 
As if one's breath would fray the lily of a 

creature ? 145 

A soft and easy life these ladies lead ! 
Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed. 
Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness, 
Keep that foot its lady primness, 
Let those ankles never swerve I 5° 

From their exquisite reserve, 
Yet have to trip along the streets like me, 
All but naked to the knee ! 



Pippa Passes 21 

How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss 

So startling as her real first infant kiss ? 

Oh, no, — not envy, this ! *56 

Not envy, sure ! — for if you gave me 

Leave to take or to refuse, 

In earnest, do you think I'd choose 

That sort of new love to enslave me ? 160 

Mine should have lapped me round from the 

beginning, 
As little fear of losing it as winning ; 
Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their 

wives, 
And only parents' love can last our lives. 
At eve the Son and Mother, gentle pair, 165 
Commune inside our turret ; what prevents 
My being Luigi ? While that mossy lair 
Of lizards through the winter-time, is stirred 
With each to each imparting sweet intents 
For this new year, as brooding bird to bird 
(For I observe of late, the evening walk 171 
Of Luigi and his mother always ends 
Inside our ruined turret, where they talk, 



22 Pippa Passes 

Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than 

friends), 
Let me be cared about, kept out of harm, 
And schemed for, safe in love as with a 

charm ; J 76 

Let me be Luigi ! — If I only knew 
What was my mother's face — my father, 

too! 

Nay, if you come to that, best love of all 

Is God's ; then why not have God's love 

befall 180 

Myself as, in the palace by the Dome, 
Monsignor? — who to-night will bless the 

home 
Of his dead brother ; and God will bless in 

turn 
That heart which beats, those eyes which 

mildly burn 
With love for all men ! I, to-night at 

least, 185 

Would be that holy and beloved priest. 



Pippa Passes 23 

Now wait ! — even I already seem to share 
In God's love : what does New- Year's hymn 

declare ? 
What other meaning do these verses bear ? 

All service ranks the same with God. 19° 

If now, as formerly he trod 

Paradise, his presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 

Are we ; there is no last nor first. x 95 

Say not " a small event ! " Why " small ? " 
Costs it more pain that this ye call 
A "great event" should come to pass, 
Than that ? Untwine me from the mass 
Of deeds which make up life one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed ! 201 

And more of it and more of it ! — oh, 

yes — 
I will pass each, and see their happiness, 



24 Pippa Passes 

And envy none — being just as great, no 

doubt, 
Useful to men, and dear to God, as they ! 
A pretty thing to care about 206 

So mightily, this single holiday ! 
But let the sun shine ! Wherefore repine ? 
With thee to lead me, O Day of mine, 
Down the grass-path gray with dew, 210 

Under the pine-wood blind with boughs, 
Where the swallow never flew 
Nor yet cicala dared carouse — 
No, dared carouse ! \She enters the street. 



I. — Morning. Up the Hillside, inside the Shrub- 
house. Luca's Wife, Ottama, and her para- 
mour, the German Sebald. 

sebald \sings\ 

Let the watching lids wink ! 
Day's ablaze with eyes, think — 
Deep into the night, drink ! 



Pippa Passes 25 

OTTIMA. 

Night ? Such may be your Rhineland nights, 
perhaps ; 

But this blood-red beam through the shutter's 
chink — 5 

We call such light the morning's : let us 
see ! 

Mind how you grope your way, though ! 
How these tall 

Naked geraniums straggle ! Push the lat- 
tice 

Behind that frame ! — Nay, do I bid you ? — 
Sebald, 

It shakes the dust down on me ! Why, of 
course IO 

The slide-bolt catches. — Well, are you con- 
tent, 

Or must I find you something else to spoil ? 

Kiss and be friends, my Sebald ! Is it full 
morning ? 

Oh, don't speak then ! 



26 Pippa Passes 

SEBALD. 

Ay, thus it used to be ! 
Ever your house was, I remember, shut 15 
Till midday ; I observed that, as I strolled 
On mornings thro' the vale here : country 

girls 
Were noisy, washing garments in the brook, 
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the 

hills ; 
But no, your house was mute, would ope no 

eye ! 2 ° 

And wisely ; you were plotting one thing 

there, 
Nature another outside. I looked up — 
Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars, 
Silent as death, blind in a flood of light. 
Oh, I remember ! — and the peasants laughed 
And said, " The old man sleeps with the 

young wife ! " 2 6 

This house was his, this chair, this window 

— his! 



Pippa Passes 27 

OTTIMA. 

Ah, the clear morning ! I can see Saint 

Mark's ; 
That black streak is the belfry. Stop : 

Vicenza 
Should lie — there's Padua, plain enough, 

that blue ! 3° 

Look o'er my shoulder, follow my ringer ! 

SEBALD. 

Morning ? 
It seems to me a night with a sun added. 
Where's dew, where' s freshness ? That 

bruised plant, I bruised 
In getting thro' the lattice yester-eve, 
Droops as it did. See, here's my elbow's 

mark 35 

r the dust o' the sill. 

OTTIMA. 

Oh, shut the lattice, pray ! 



28 Pippa Passes 

SEBALD. 

Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here 
Foul as the morn may be. 

There, shut the world out ! 
How do you feel now, Ottima ? There, 

curse 
The world, and all outside ! Let us throw 

off 40 

This mask : how do you bear yourself ? 

Let's out 
With all of it ! 

OTTIMA. 

Best never speak of it. 

SEBALD. 

Best speak again and yet again of it, 

Till words cease to be more than words. 

" His blood," 
For instance — let those two words mean 

"His blood" 45 



Pippa Passes 29 

And nothing more. Notice, I'll say them 

now, 
« His blood." 



OTTIMA. 

Assuredly if I repented 



The deed — 



SEBALD. 

Repent ? who should repent, or why ? 
What puts that in your head ? Did I once 

say 
That I repented ? 

OTTIMA. 

No, I said the deed — 5° 

SEBALD. 

" The deed " and " the event " — just now it 

was 
"Our passion's fruit" — the devil take such 

cant ! 



30 Pippa Passes 

Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol, 
I am his cutthroat, you are — 

OTTIMA. 

Here's the wine ; 
I brought it when we left the house above, 
And glasses too — wine of both sorts. 
Black ? white then ? 56 

SEBALD. 

But am not I his cutthroat ? What are 
you? 

OTTIMA. 

There trudges on his business from the 

Duomo 
Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood 
And bare feet — always in one place at 

church, 60 

Close under the stone wall by the south 

entry ; 
I used to take him for a brown cold piece 



Pippa Passes 31 

Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose 
To let me pass — at first, I say, I used — 
Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on 
me, 65 

I rather should account the plastered wall 
A piece of him, so chilly does it strike. 
This, Sebald ? 

SEBALD. 

No, the white wine — the white wine ! 
Well, Ottima, I promised no new year 
Should rise on us the ancient shameful 

way, 70 

Nor does it rise : pour on ! To your black 

eyes ! 
Do you remember last damned New- Year's 

day? 

OTTIMA. 

You brought those foreign prints. We 

looked at them 
Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme 



32 Pippa Passes 

To get him from the fire. Nothing but 
saying 75 

His own set wants the proof-mark, roused 
him up 

To hunt them out. 

SEBALD. 

Hark you, Ottima, 
One thing's to guard against. We'll not 

make much 
One of the other — that is, not make more 
Parade of warmth, childish officious coil, 80 
Than yesterday — as if, sweet, I supposed 
Proof upon proof were needed now, now first, 
To show I love you — yes, still love you — 

love you 
In spite of Luca and what's come to him — 
Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts, 
White sneering old reproachful face and all ! 
We'll even quarrel, love, at times, as if 
We still could lose each other, were not tied 
By this — conceive you ? 



Pippa Passes 33 

OTTIMA. 

Love! 

SEBALD. 

Not tied so sure ! 

Because tho* I was wrought upon, have 

struck 9° 

His insolence back into him — am I 

So surely yours ? — therefore, forever yours ? 

OTTIMA. 

Love, to be wise (one counsel pays another), 
Should we have — months ago, when first 

we loved, 
For instance that May morning we two stole 
Under the green ascent of sycamores — 9 6 
If we had come upon a thing like that 
Suddenly — 

SEBALD. 

" A thing " — there again — "a thing ! " 



34 Pippa Passes 

OTTIMA. 

Then, Venus' body, had we come upon 
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse 
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered 
close — ioi 

Would you have pored upon it ? Why per- 
sist 
In poring now upon it ? For 'tis here 
As much as there in the deserted house — 
You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me, 
Now he is dead I hate him worse ; I hate — 
Dare you stay here ? I would go back and 

hold 
His two dead hands, and say, "I hate you 

worse, 
Luca, than — " 

SEBALD. 

Off, off — take your hands off mine ! 

'Tis the hot evening — off ! oh, morning, is 

it? no 



Pippa Passes 35 



OTTIMA. 

There's one thing must be done — you 

, know what thing. 
Come in and help to carry. We may sleep 
Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night. 

SEBALD. 

What would come, think you, if we let him 

lie 
Just as he is ? Let him lie there until II 5 
The angels take him ! He is turned by 

this 
Off from his face beside, as you wiH see. 

OTTIMA. 

This dusty pane might serve for looking- 
glass. 

Three, four — four gray hairs ! Is it so you 
said 119 

A plait of hair should wave across my neck ? 

No — this way. 



36 Pippa Passes 

SEBALD. 

Ottima, I would give your neck, 
Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts 

of yours, 
That this were undone ! Killing ! Kill the 

world 
So Luca lives again ! — ay, lives to sputter 
His fulsome dotage on you — yes, and feign 
Surprise that I return at eve to sup, 126 

When all the morning I was loitering here — 
Bid me despatch my business and begone. 
I would — 

OTTIMA. 

See! 

SEBALD. 

No, I'll finish ! Do you think 
I fear to speak the bare truth once for all ? 
All we have talked of is, at bottom, fine 131 
To suffer ; there's a recompense in guilt ; 



Pippa Passes 37 

One must be venturous and fortunate : 
What is one young for, else ? In age we'll 

sigh 
O'er the wild, reckless, wicked days flown 

over ; 135 

Still we have lived : the vice was in its place. 
But to have eaten Luca's bread, have worn 
His clothes, have felt his money swell my 

purse — 
Do lovers in romances sin that way ? 
Why, I was starving when I used to call 140 
And teach you music, starving while you 

plucked me 
These flowers to smell ! 

OTTIMA. 

My poor lost friend ! 

SEBALD. 

He gave me 
Life, nothing less ; what if he did reproach 
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more — 



38 Pippa Passes 

Had he no right ? What was to wonder 
at ? M5 

He sat by us at table quietly — 

Why must you lean across till our cheeks 
touch'd ? 

Could he do less than make pretence to 
strike ? 

'Tis not the crime's sake — I'd commit ten 
crimes 

Greater, to have this crime wiped out, un- 
done ! I 5° 

And you — O, how feel you ? feel you for 
me? 

OTTIMA. 

Well then, I love you better now than ever, 
And best — look at me while I speak to 

you — 
Best for the crime ; nor do I grieve, in truth, 
This mask, this simulated ignorance, x 55 

This affectation of simplicity, 
Falls off our crime ; this naked crime of ours 



Pippa Passes 39 

May not, now, be looked over — look it 

down ! 
Great? let it be great; but the joys it 

brought, 
Pay they or no its price ? Come : they or it ! 
Speak not ! The past, would you give up 

the past l61 

Such as it is, pleasure and crime together ? 
Give up that noon I owned my love for you ? 
The garden's silence ! even the single bee 
Persisting in his toil suddenly stopped, 165 
And where he hid you only could surmise 
By some campanula's chalice set a-swing. 
Who stammered, " Yes, I love you ? " 
And when I ventured to receive you here, 
Made you steal hither in the mornings — 170 

SEBALD. 

When 
I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here, 
Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread 
To a yellow haze ? 



40 Pippa Passes 



OTTIMA. 



Ah — my sign was, the sun 
Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree 
Nipped by the first frost. 

SEBALD. 

You would always laugh 
At my wet boots : I had to stride thro' grass 
Over my ankles. 

OTTIMA. 

Then our crowning night ! 

SEBALD. 

The July night ? 

OTTIMA. 

The day of it too, Sebald ! 
When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with 

heat, 
Its black-blue canopy suffered descend 180 



Pippa Passes 41 

Close on us both, to weigh down each to 

each, 
And smother up all life except our life. 
So lay we till the storm came. 

SEBALD. 

How it came ! 

OTTIMA. 

Buried in woods we lay, you recollect ; 

Swift ran the searching tempest overhead ; l8 5 

And ever and anon some bright white 
shaft 

Burned thro' the pine-tree roof — here burned 
and there, 

As if God's messenger thro' the close wood 
screen 

Plunged and replunged his weapon at a ven- 
ture, 189 

Feeling for guilty thee and me ; then broke 

The thunder like a whole sea overhead — 



42 Pippa Passes 

SEBALD. 

Slower, Ottima — 

OTTIMA. 

Sebald, as we lay, 
Who said, " Let death come now ! 'tis right 

to die ! 
Right to be punished ! nought completes such 

bliss 
But woe ! " Who said that ? 

SEBALD. 

How did we ever rise ? 
Was't that we slept ? Why did it end ? 

OTTIMA. 

I felt you, 
Fresh tapering to a point the ruffled ends 197 
Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid 

lips — 
My hair is fallen now : knot it again ! 



Pippa Passes 43 

SEBALD. 

I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now, and now ! 
This way ? Will you forgive me — be once 
more 201 

My great queen ? 

OTTIMA. 

Bind it thrice about my brow ; 
Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress, 
Magnificent in sin. Say that ! 

SEBALD. 

I crown you 
My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress, 
Magnificent — 2o6 

{From without is heard the voice of Pippa singing^ 

The year's at the spring, 

And day's at the morn ; 

Morning's at seven ; 

The hillside's dew-pearled : 210 



44 Pippa Passes 

The lark's on the wing ; 
The snail's on the thorn ; 
God's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world ! 

(Pippa passes.) 

SEBALD. 

God's in his heaven ! Do you hear that ? 
Who spoke ? 215 

You, you spoke ! 

OTTIMA. 

Oh — that little ragged girl ! 

She must have rested on the step : we give 
them 

But this one holiday the whole year round. 

Did you ever see our silk-mills — their in- 
side ? 

There are ten silk-mills now belong to you. 

She stoops to pick my double heart's-ease — 
Sh ! 221 

She does not hear : call you out louder ! 



Pippa Passes 45 

SEBALD. 

Leave me ! 
Go, get your clothes on — dress those shoul- 
ders ! 

OTTIMA. 

Sebald ! 

SEBALD. 

Wipe off that paint ! I hate you ! 

OTTIMA. 

Miserable ! 

SEBALD. 

My God ! and she is emptied of it now ! 225 
Outright now ! — how miraculously gone 
All of the grace — had she not strange grace 

once ? 
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it 

likes, 



46 Pippa Passes 

No purpose holds the features up together, 
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin 
Stay in their places : and the very hair, 2 3 I 
That seemed to have a sort of life in it, 
Drops, a dead web ! — 

OTTIMA. 

Speak to me — not of me ! 

SEBALD. 

That round great full-orbed face, where not 

an angle 
Broke the delicious indolence — all broken ! 

OTTIMA. 

To me — not of me! Ungrateful, perjured 
cheat ! 236 

A coward, too — but ingrate's worse than all ! 

Beggar — my slave — a fawning, cringing 
lie! 

Leave me ! betray me ! I can see your drift ! 

A lie that walks and eats and drinks ! 240 



Pippa Passes 47 

SEBALD. 

My God ! 

Those morbid, olive, faultless shoulder- 
blades — 

I should have known there was no blood be- 
neath ! 

OTTIMA. 

You hate me, then ? You hate me, then ? 

SEBALD. 

To think 
She would succeed in her absurd attempt, 
And fascinate by sinning, show herself 245 
Superior — guilt from its excess superior 
To innocence. That little peasant's voice 
Has righted all again. Though I be lost, 
I know which is the better, never fear, 
Of vice or virtue, purity or lust, 2 5° 

Nature or trick ! I see what I have done, 
Entirely now ! Oh, I am proud to feel 



48 Pippa Passes 

Such torments — let the world take credit 

thence — 
I, having done my deed, pay too its price ! 
I hate, hate — curse you ! God's in his 

heaven ! 255 

OTTIMA. 

Me! 

Me ! no, no, Sebald, not yourself — kill 

me ! 
Mine is the whole crime. Do but kill me — 

then 
Yourself — then — presently — first hear me 

speak ! 
I always meant to kill myself — wait, 

you ! 
Lean on my breast — not as a breast ; don't 

love me 260 

The more because you lean on me, my 

own 
Heart's Sebald ! There, there, both deaths 

presently ! 



Pippa Passes 49 

SEBALD. 

My brain is drowned now — quite drowned : 

all I feel 
Is — is, at swift-recurring intervals, 
A hurry-down within me, as of waters 26 S 
Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit : 
There they go — whirls from a black, fiery 

sea! 

OTTIMA. 

Not me — to him, O God, be merciful ! 



Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the 
Hillside to Orcana. Foreign Students of Paint- 
ing and Sculpture, from Venice, assembled opposite 
the House of Jules, a young French Statuary, at 
Possagno. 

FIRST STUDENT. 

Attention ! my own post is beneath this 
window, but the pomegranate clump yonder 



50 Pippa Passes 

will hide three or four of you with a little 
squeezing, and Schramm and his pipe must 
lie flat in the balcony. Four, five — who's 
a defaulter ? We want everybody, for Jules 
must not be suffered to hurt his bride when 
the jest's found out. 8 

SECOND STUDENT. 

All here ! Only our poet's away — never 
having much meant to be present, moon- 
strike him ! The airs of that fellow, that 
Giovacchino ! He was in violent love with 
himself, and had a fair prospect of thriv- 
ing in his suit, so unmolested was it, — 
when suddenly a woman falls in love with 
him, too ; and out of pure jealousy he takes 
himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and 
all — whereto is this prophetical epitaph ap- 
pended already, as Bluphocks assures me — 
" Here a mammoth-poem lies, Fouled to death 
by butterflies!' His own fault, the simpleton ! 
Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife 



Pippa Passes 5 1 

in your entrails, he should write, says Blup- 
hocks, both classically and intelligibly. Ais- 
culapms, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs : 
Hebe's plaister — One strip Cools your lip. 
Phoebus' emulsion — One bottle Clears your 
throttle. Mercury s bolus — One box Cures — 

THIRD STUDENT. 

Subside, my fine fellow ! If the marriage 
was over by ten o'clock, Jules will certainly 
be here in a minute with his bride. 3 1 

SECOND STUDENT. 

Good ! — Only, so should the poet's muse 
have been universally acceptable, says Blup- 
hocks, et canibus nostris — and Delia not 
better known to our literary dogs than the 
boy Giovacchino ! 36 

FIRST STUDENT. 

To the point, now. Where's Gottlieb, the 
newcomer ? Oh, — listen, Gottlieb, to what 



52 Pippa Passes 

has called down this piece of friendly ven- 
geance on Jules, of which we now assemble 
to witness the winding-up. We are all 
agreed, all in a tale, observe, when Jules 
shall burst out on us in a fury by and by, 
I am spokesman — the verses that are to 
undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche 

— but each professes himself alike insulted 
by this strutting stone-squarer, who came 
alone from Paris to Munich, and thence with 
a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno here, 
but proceeds in a day or two alone again 

— oh, alone indubitably ! — to Rome and 
Florence. He, forsooth, take up his portion 
with these dissolute, brutalized, heartless 
bunglers ! — so he was heard to call us all : 
now, is Schramm brutalized, I should like to 
know ? Am I heartless ? S 6 

GOTTLIEB. 

Why, somewhat heartless ; for, suppose 
Jules a coxcomb as much as you choose, 



Pippa Passes 53 

still, for this mere coxcombry, you will have 
brushed off — what do folks style it ? — the 
bloom of his life. Is it too late to alter ? 
These love-letters, now, you call his — I 
can't laugh at them. 6 3 

FOURTH STUDENT. 

Because you never read the sham letters 
of our inditing which drew forth these. 6 5 

GOTTLIEB. 

His discovery of the truth will be frightful. 

FOURTH STUDENT. 

That's the joke. But you should have 
joined us at the beginning : there's no doubt 
he loves the girl — loves a model he might 
hire by the hour ! 7° 

GOTTLIEB. 

See here ! " He has been accustomed," 
he writes, "to have Canova's women about 



54 Pippa Passes 

him in stone, and the world's women beside 
him in flesh ; these being as much below, as 
those above, his soul's aspiration ; but now 
he is to have the reality." — There you laugh 
again ! I say, you wipe off the very dew of 
his youth. 78 

FIRST STUDENT. 

Schramm ! (Take the pipe out of his 
mouth, somebody) — will Jules lose the bloom 
of his youth ? 81 

SCHRAMM. 

Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this 
world : look at a blossom — it drops pres- 
ently, having done its service and lasted its 
time ; but fruits succeed, and where would 
be the blossom's place could it continue ? 
As well affirm that your eye is no longer 
in your body, because its earliest favorite, 
whatever it may have first loved to look on, 
is dead and done with — as that any affection 



Pippa Passes 55 

is lost to the soul when its first object, what- 
ever happened first to satisfy it, is super- 
seded in due course. Keep but ever looking, 
whether with the body's eye or the mind's, 
and you will soon find something to look 
on ! Has a man done wondering at women ? 

— there follow men, dead and alive, to 
wonder at. Has he done wondering at men ? 

— there's God to wonder at : and the faculty 
of wonder may be, at the same time, old and 
tired enough with respect to its first object, 
and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far 
as concerns its novel one. Thus — 103 

FIRST STUDENT. 

Put Schramm's pipe into his mouth again ! 
There, you see ! Well, this Jules — a 
wretched fribble — oh, I watched his disport- 
ings at Possagno, the other day ! Canova's 
gallery — you know : there he marches first 
resolvedly past great works by the dozen 
without vouchsafing an eye; all at once he 



56 Pippa Passes 

stops full at the Psiche-fanciulla — cannot 
pass that old acquaintance without a nod 
of encouragement — " In your new place, 
beauty ? Then behave yourself as well here 
as at Munich — I see you ! " Next he posts 
himself deliberately before the unfinished 
Pieta for half an hour without moving, till 
up he starts of a sudden, and thrusts his 
very nose into — I say, into — the group ; 
by which gesture you are informed that pre- 
cisely the sole point he had not fully mastered 
in Canova's practice was a certain method of 
using the drill in the articulation of the knee- 
joint — and that, likewise, has he mastered 
at length ! Good-by, therefore, to poor 
Canova — whose gallery no longer need de- 
tain his successor Jules, the predestinated 
novel thinker in marble ! 128 

FIFTH STUDENT. 

Tell him about the women ; go on to the 
women ! 13° 



Pippa Passes 57 

FIRST STUDENT. 

Why, on that matter he could never be 
supercilious enough. How should we be 
other (he said) than the poor devils you see, 
with those debasing habits we cherish ? He 
was not to wallow in that mire, at least ; he 
would wait, and love only at the proper time, 
and meanwhile put up with the Psiche- 
fanciulla. Now I happened to hear of a 
young Greek — real Greek girl at Mala- 
mocco ; a true islander, do you see, with 
Alciphron's " hair like sea-moss " — Schramm 
knows ! — white and quiet as an apparition, 
and fourteen years old at farthest, — a 
daughter of Natalia, so she swears — that 
hag Natalia, who helps us to models at three 
lire an hour. We selected this girl for the 
heroine of our jest. So, first, Jules received 
a scented letter — somebody had seen his 
Tydeus at the Academy, and my picture was 
nothing to it : a profound admirer bade him 



58 Pippa Passes 

persevere — would make herself known to 
him ere long. (Paolina, my little friend of 
the Fenice, transcribes divinely.) And in due 
time, the mysterious correspondent gave cer- 
tain hints of her peculiar charms — the pale 
cheeks, the black hair — whatever, in short, 
had struck us in our Malamocco model ; we 
retained her name, too — Phene, which is by 
interpretation sea-eagle. Now, think of Jules 
finding himself distinguished from the herd 
of us by such a creature ! In his very first 
answer he proposed marrying his monitress : 
and fancy us over these letters, two, three 
times a day, to receive and despatch! I 
concocted the main of it : relations were in 
the way — secrecy must be observed — in 
fine, would he wed her on trust, and only 
speak to her when they were indissolubly 
united ? St — st — Here they come ! 169 



Pippa Passes 59 



SIXTH STUDENT. 

Both of them ! Heaven's love, speak 
softly, speak within yourselves ! T 7i 

FIFTH STUDENT. 

Look at the bridegroom ! Half his hair in 
storm, and half in calm, — patted down over 
the left temple, — like a frothy cup one blows 
on to cool it ! and the same old blouse that 
he murders the marble in ! 176 

SECOND STUDENT. 

Not a rich vest like yours, Hannibal 
Scratchy ! — rich, that your face may the 
better set it off ! 

SIXTH STUDENT. 

- And the bride ! Yes, sure enough, our 
Phene ! Should you have known her in her 
clothes ? How magnificently pale ! l82 



6o Pippa Passes 



GOTTLIEB. 

She does not also take it for earnest, I 
hope ? 

FIRST STUDENT. 

Oh, Natalia's concern, that is ! We settle 
with Natalia. 186 

SIXTH STUDENT. 

She does not speak — has evidently let 
out no word. The only thing is, will she 
equally remember the rest of her lesson, and 
repeat correctly all those verses which are to 
break the secret to Jules ? T 9 T 

GOTTLIEB. 

How he gazes on her ! Pity — pity ! 

FIRST STUDENT. 

They go in : now, silence ! You three, — 
not nearer the window, mind, than that 



Pippa Passes 61 

pomegranate — just where the little girl, who 
a few minutes ago passed us singing, is 
seated ! 197 



II. — Noon. Over Orcana. The House of Jules, 
who crosses its threshold with Phene : she is 
silent, on which Jules begins. 

Do not die, Phene ! I am yours now, you 
Are mine now ; let Fate reach me how she 

likes, 
If you'll not die : so, never die ! Sit here — 
My workroom's single seat : I over-lean 
This length of hair and lustrous front ; they 

turn 5 

Like an entire flower upward : eyes, lips, last 
Your chin — no, last your throat turns : 'tis 

their scent 
Pulls down my face upon you ! Nay, look 

ever 
This one way till I change, grow you — I 

could 



62 Pippa Passes 

Change into you, beloved ! IO 

You by me, 
And I by you ; this is your hand in mine, 
And side by side we sit : all's true. Thank 

God! 
I have spoken : speak, you ! 

Oh, my life to come ! 
My Tydeus must be carved that's there in 

clay; 
Yet how be carved, with you about the 

room ? 15 

Where must I place you ? When I think 

that once 
This roomful of rough block-work seemed my 

heaven 
Without you ! Shall I ever work again, 
Get fairly into my old ways again, 
Bid each conception stand while, trait by 

trait, 20 

My hand transfers its lineaments to stone ? 
Will my mere fancies live near you, their 

truth — 



You by me, 
*And side by side we sit 
•Photogravure. From drawing by Louis Meyuell 



«ind I by you ; this is your hand it, 




yoell 



Pippa Passes 63 

The live truth, passing and repassing me, 
Sitting beside me ? 

Now speak ! 

Only, first, 
See, all your letters ! Was't not well con- 
trived ? 2 5 
Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe ; she keeps 
Your letters next her skin : which drops out 

foremost ? 
Ah, — this that swam down like a first moon- 
beam 
Into my world ! 

Again those eyes complete 
Their melancholy .survey, sweet and slow, 3° 
Of all my room holds ; to return and rest 
On me, with pity, yet some wonder too : 
As if God bade some spirit plague a world, 
And this were the one moment of surprise 
And sorrow while she took her station, paus- 
ing 35 
O'er what she sees, finds good, and must 
destroy ! 



64 Pippa Passes 

What gaze you at ? Those ? Books, I told 

you of ; 
Let your first word to me rejoice them, too : 
This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red 
Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe — 4° 
Read this line — no, shame — Homer's be 

the Greek 
First breathed me from the lips of my Greek 

girl! 
My Odyssey in coarse black vivid type 
With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and 

page, 
To mark great places with due gratitude : 45 
" He said, and on Antinous directed 
A bitter shaft " — a flower blots out the rest ! 
Again upon your search ? My statues, 

then ! — 
Ah, do not mind that — better that will look 
When cast in bronze — an Almaign Kaiser, 

that, 50 

Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based 

on hip. 



Pippa Passes 65 

This, rather, turn to ! What, unrecognized ? 
I thought you would have seen that here you 

sit 
As I imagined you — Hippolyta, 
Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. 55 
Recall you this, then ? " Carve in bold 

relief " — 
So you commanded — " carve, against I 

come, 
A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, 
Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, 
Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 6o 
'Praise those who slew Hipparchus,' cry 

the guests, 
' While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle 

waves 
As erst above our champion : stand up, 

all ! ' " 
See, I have labored to express your thought. 
Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and 

arms 65 

(Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, 



66 Pippa Passes 

Only consenting at the branches' end 

They strain toward) serves for frame to a 

sole face, 
The Praiser's, in the centre, who with eyes 
Sightless, so bend they back to light inside 70 
His brain where visionary forms throng up, 
Sings, minding not that palpitating arch 
Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of 

wine 
From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor 

crowns cast off, 74 

Violet and parsley crowns to trample on — 
Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve, 
Devoutly their unconquerable hymn ! 
But you must say a " well " to that — say, 

« well ! " 
Because you gaze — am I fantastic, sweet ? 
Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble — mar- 

bly 80 

Even to the silence ! why before I found 
The real flesh Phene, I inured myself 
To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff 



Pippa Passes 6? 

For better nature's birth by means of art : 
With me, each substance tended to one form 
Of beauty — to the human archetype. 86 

On every side occurred suggestive germs 
Of that — the tree, the flower — or take the 

fruit, — 
Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, 
Curved beewise o'er its bough ; as rosy limbs, 
Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just 9 1 
From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad 

sprang ! 
But of the stuffs one can be master of, 
How I divined their capabilities ! 
From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk 
That yields your outline to the air's em- 
brace, 96 
Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom, 
Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure 
To cut its one confided thought clean out 
Of all the world. But marble ! — 'neath my 
tools IOO 
More pliable than jelly — as it were 



68 Pippa Passes 

Some clear primordial creature dug from 

depths 
In the earth's heart, where itself breeds 

itself, 
And whence all baser substance may be 

worked — 
Refine it off to air you may, condense it 105 
Down to the diamond ; — is not metal there, 
When o'er the sudden specks my chisel 

trips ? 
Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, 
Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep ? 
Lurks flame in no strange windings where, 

surprised II0 

By the swift implement sent home at once, 
Flushes and glowings radiate and hover 
About its track ? — 

Phene ! what — why is this ? 
That whitening cheek, those still-dilating 

eyes ! 
Ah, you will die — I knew that you would 

die! 115 






/ kiss you now, dear Ottima, now, and now ! 
This way ' ' 
Photogravure. From drawing by Louis Meynelle. 



Pippa Passes 69 

phene begins, on his having long remained 
silent. 

Now the end's coming ; to be sure, it must 
Have ended sometime ! Tush, why need I 

speak 
Their foolish speech ? I cannot bring to 

mind 
One half of it, beside, and do not care 
For old Natalia now, nor any of them. I2 ° 
Oh, you — what are you ? — if I do not try 
To say the words Natalia made me learn, 
To please your friends, — it is to keep myself 
Where your voice lifted me, by letting that 
Proceed ; but can it ? Even you, perhaps, 125 
Cannot take up, now you have once let fall, 
The music's life, and me along with that — 
No, or you would ! We'll stay, then, as we 

are — 
Above the world. 

You creature with the eyes ! 
If I could look forever up to them, 130 



JO Pippa Passes 

As now you let me, I believe, all sin, 
All memory of wrong done, suffering borne, 
Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth 
Whence all that's low comes, and there touch 

and stay — 
Never to overtake the rest of me, *35 

All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, 
Drawn by those eyes ! What rises is myself, 
Not me the shame and suffering; but they 

sink, 
Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so 
Above the world ! 

But you sink, for your eyes 
Are altering — altered ! Stay — "I love you, 

love — " 141 

I could prevent it if I understood 
More of your words to me — was't in the 

tone 
Or the words, your power ? 

Or stay — I will repeat 
Their speech, if that contents you ! Only, 

change x 45 



Pippa Passes 71 

No more, and I shall find it presently 

Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up. 

Natalia threatened me that harm would follow 

Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, 

But harm to me, I thought she meant, not 

you. 150 

Your friends — Natalia said they were your 

friends 
And meant you well — because, I doubted it, 
Observing (what was very strange to see) 
On every face, so different in all else, *54 

The same smile girls like me are used to beai, 
But never men, men cannot stoop so low ; 
Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that 

smile, 
That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit 
Which seems to take possession of the world 
And make of God their tame confederate, 160 
Purveyor to their appetites — you know ! 
But still Natalia said they were your friends, 
And they assented though they smiled the 

more, 



72 Pippa Passes 

And all came round me — that thin English- 
man 
With light, lank hair seemed leader of the 
rest ; 165 

He held a paper — " What we want," said he, 
Ending some explanation to his friends, 
" Is something slow, involved, and mystical, 
To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste 
And lure him on until at innermost *7<> 

Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find 

— this ! 
As in the apple's core the noisome fly ; 
For insects on the rind are seen at once, 
And brushed aside as soon, but this is found 
Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 
And so he read what I have got by heart : 
I'll speak it, — "Do not die, love ! I am 

yours " — 
No — is not that, or like that, part of words 
Yourself began by speaking ? Strange to lose 
What cost much pains to learn ! Is this more 
right ? 180 



Pippa Passes 73 

I am a painter who cannot paint ; 

In my life, a devil rather than saint, 

In my brain, as poor a creature too — 

No end to all I cannot do ! 

Yet do one thing at least I can — l8 S 

Love a man, or hate a man 

Supremely : thus my lore began 

Through the Valley of Love I went. 

In its lovingest spot to abide, 

And just on the verge where I pitched my 

tent, 190 

I found Hate dwelling beside. 
(Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter 

meant 
Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride ! ) 
And further, I traversed Hate's Grove, 
In its hatefullest nook to dwell ; *95 

But lo, where I flung myself prone, 

couched Love 
Where the shadow threefold fell ! 
(The meaning — those black bride' s-eyes 

above, 
Not the painter's lip should tell !) 



74 Pippa Passes 

" And here ! " said he, " Jules probably will 
ask, 200 

You have black eyes, love — you are, sure 
enough, 

My peerless bride, — then do you tell, indeed, 

What needs some explanation — what means 
this ? " — 

And I am to go on, without a word — 

So I grew wise in Love and Hate, 205 

From simple that I was of late. 
Once, when I loved, I would enlace 
Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form, and face 
Of her I loved, in one embrace — 209 

As if by mere love I could love immensely ! 
And when I hated, I would plunge 
My sword, and wipe with the first lunge 
My foe's whole life out like a sponge — 
As if by mere hate I could hate intensely ! 
But now I am wiser, know better the fashion 
How passion seeks aid from its opposite 
passion ; 216 



Pippa Passes 75 

And if I see cause to love more, or hate 

more 
Than ever man loved, ever hated, before — 
And seek in the Valley of Love 
The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove, 220 
Where my soul may surely reach 
The essence, nought less, of each, 
The Hate of all Hates, the Love 
Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove — 
I find them the very warders 22 5 

Each of the other's borders. 
When I love most, Love is disguised 
In Hate ; and when Hate is surprised 
In Love, then I hate most : ask 
How Love smiles through Hate's iron 

casque, 2 3° 

Hate grins through Love's rose-braided 

mask, — 
And how, having hated thee, 
I sought long and painfully 
To reach thy heart, nor prick 
The skin, but pierce to the quick — 235 



J6 Pippa Passes 

Ask this, my Jules, and be answered 

straight 
By thy bride — how the painter Lut- 

wyche can hate ! 

jules interposes. 

Lutwyche ! who else ? But all of them, no 

doubt, 
Hated me : they at Venice — presently 2 39 
Their turn, however ! You I shall not meet : 
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me ! 

Keep 
What's here, the gold — we cannot meet 

again, 
Consider — and the money was but meant 
For two years' travel, which is over now, 
All chance or hope or care or need of it. 2 45 
This — and what comes from selling these, 

my casts 
And books and medals, except — let them 

go 
Together, so the produce keeps you safe 



Pippa Passes 77 

Out of Natalia's clutches ! — If by chance 

(For all's chance here) I should survive the 

gang 250 

At Venice, root out all fifteen of them, 

We might meet somewhere, since the world 

is wide. 

{From without is heard the voice 

of Pippa, singing) 
Give her but a least excuse to love me ! 
When — where — 
How — can this arm establish her above 

me, 2 55 

If fortune fixed her as my lady there, 
There already, to eternally reprove me ? 
(" Hist ! " said Kate the Queen ; 
But " Oh ! " cried the maiden, binding 

her tresses, 
" 'Tis only a page that carols unseen, 260 
Crumbling your hounds their messes ! ") 

Is she wronged ? — To the rescue of her 

honor, 
My heart ! 



78 Pippa Passes 

Is she poor ? — What costs it to be 
styled a donor ? 264 

Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part ! 

But that fortune should have thrust all 
this upon her ! 

(" Nay, list ! " bade Kate the Queen ; 

And still cried the maiden, binding her 
tresses, 

" 'Tis only a page that carols unseen 

Fitting your hawks their jesses ! ") 2 7° 

(Pippa passes) 

jules resumes. 

What name was that the little girl sang 

forth ? 
Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who re- 
nounced 
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here 
At Asolo, where still her memory stays, 
And peasants sing how once a certain 
page 2 75 

Pined for the grace of her so far above 



Pippa Passes 79 

His power of doing good to "Kate the 

Queen " — 
" She never could be wronged, be poor," he 

sighed, 
" Need him to help her ! " 

Yes, a bitter thing 
To see our lady above all need of us ; 280 

Yet so we look ere we will love ; not I, 
But the world looks so. If whoever loves 
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper, 
The blessing or the blest one, queen or 

page, 
Why should we always choose the page's 

part ? 28 5 

Here is a woman with utter need of me, — 
I find myself queen here, it seems ! 

How strange ! 
Look at the woman here with the new soul, 
Like my own Psyche, — fresh upon her lips 
Alit the visionary butterfly, 2 9° 

Waiting my word to enter and make bright, 
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 



80 Pippa Passes 

This body had no soul before, but slept 
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free 
From taint or foul with stain, as outward 

things 295 

Fastened their image on its passiveness ; 
Now, it will wake, feel, live — or die again ! 
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff 
Be art — and, further, to evoke a soul 
From form be nothing ? This new soul is 

mine ! 3 00 

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that 

do ? — save 
A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death 
Without me, from their laughter ! — Oh, to 

hear 
God's voice plain as I heard it first, before 
They broke in with their laughter ! I heard 

them 305 

Henceforth, not God ! 

To Ancona — Greece — some isle ! 
I wanted silence only ! there is clay 



Pippa Passes 81 

Everywhere. One may do whate'er one 

likes 
In art ; the only thing is, to make sure 
That one does like it — which takes pains to 

know. 3 10 

Scatter all this, my Phene — this mad 

dream ! 
Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's 

friends, 
What the whole world except our love — my 

own, 
Own Phene ? But I told you, did I not, 
Ere night we travel for your land — some 

isle 3 X 5 

With the sea's silence on it ? Stand aside — 
I do but break these paltry models up 
To begin art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I — 
And save him from my statue meeting 

him ? 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 3 2 ° 
Like a god going thro' his world there stands 
One mountain for a moment in the dusk, 



82 Pippa Passes 

Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow ; 
And you are ever by me while I gaze — 
Are in my arms as now — as now — as now ! 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 3 26 
Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas ! 

Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing fro?n 
Orcana to the Turret. Two or three of the Aus- 
trian Police loitering with Bluphocks, an Eng- 
lish vagabond, just in view of the Turret. 

BLUPHOCKS. 1 

So that is your Pippa, the little girl who 
passed us singing ? Well, your Bishop's 
Intendant's money shall be honestly earned : 
— now, don't make me that sour face be- 
cause I bring the Bishop's name into the 
business : we know he can have nothing to 
do with such horrors ; we know that he is 
a saint and all that a bishop should be, who 

1 " He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 



Pippa Passes 83 

is a great man besides. Oh ! were but every 
worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every 
bough a Christmas fagot, Every tune a jig ! 
In fact, I have abjured all religions; but the 
last I inclined to was the Armenian : for I 
have travelled, do you see, and at Kcenigs- 
berg, Prussia Improper (so styled because 
there's a sort of bleak hungry sun there), 
you might remark- over a venerable house- 
porch a certain Chaldee inscription ; and, 
brief as it is, a mere glance at it used abso- 
lutely to change the mood of every bearded 
passenger. In they turned, one and all ; the 
young and lightsome, with no irreverent 
pause, the aged and decrepit, with a sensible 
alacrity — 'twas the Grand Rabbi's abode, 
in short. Struck with curiosity, I lost no 
time in learning Syriac (these are vowels, 
you dogs, — follow my stick's end in the 
mud, — Celarent, Darii, Fevio ! ), and one 
morning presented myself spelling-book in 
hand, a, b, c, — I picked it out letter by 



84 Pippa Passes 

letter, and what was the purport of this 
miraculous posy ? Some cherished legend 
of the past you'll say - — " How Moses hocus- 
pocussed Egypt's land with fly and locust," 
— or, " How to Jonah sounded harshish, Get 
thee up and go to Tarshish," — or, " How 
the angel meeting Balaam, Straight his ass 
returned a salaam." In no wise ! " Shacka- 
brach — Boach — somebody or other - — 
Isaach, Re-cei-ver, Pur-cha-ser, and Ex-chan- 
ger of — Stolen Goods ! " So talk to me of 
the religion, of a bishop ! I have renounced 
all bishops save Bishop Be ve ridge — mean to 
live so — and die — As some Greek dog-sage, 
dead and merry, Hellward bound in Charon's 
wherry — With food for both worlds, under 
and upper, Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper, 
And never an obolus — though, thanks to you, 
or this Intendant thro' you, or this Bishop 
thro' his Intendant, I possess a burning pock- 
etful of zwanzigers — to pay the Stygian 
ferry ! 5 2 



Pippa Passes 85 

FIRST POLICEMAN. 

There is the girl, then ; go and deserve 
them the moment you have pointed out to 
us Signor Luigi and his mother. (To the 
rest) I have been noticing a house yonder 
this long while — not a shutter unclosed 
since morning ! 5 8 

SECOND POLICEMAN. 

Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the silk-mills 
here : he dozes by the hour, wakes up, sighs 
deeply, says he should like to be Prince 
Metternich, and then dozes again, after hav- 
ing bidden young Sebald, the foreigner, set 
his wife to playing draughts. Never molest 
such a household, they mean well. 65 

BLUPHOCKS. 

Only, cannot you tell me something of this 
little Pippa I must have to do with ? One 
could make something of that name. Pippa 



86 Pippa Passes 

— that is, short for Felippa — rhyming to 

— Panurge consults Hertrippa — Believ'st 
thou, King Agrippa ? Something might be 
done with that name. 7 2 

SECOND POLICEMAN. 

Put into rhyme that your head and a ripe 
muskmelon would not be dear at half a 
zwanzigerl Leave this fooling, and look 
out : the afternoon's over or nearly so. 76 

THIRD POLICEMAN. 

Where in this passport of Signor Luigi 
does our Principal instruct you to watch him 
so narrowly ? There ? what's there beside 
a simple signature ? (That English fool's 
busy watching.) 81 

SECOND POLICEMAN. 

Flourish all round — "Put all possible ob- 
stacles in his way ; " oblong dot at the end — 
" Detain him till further advices reach you ; " 



— 



Pippa Passes 87 

scratch at bottom — " Send him back on pre- 
tence of some informality in the above ; " 
ink-spirt on right-hand side (which is the 
case here) — "Arrest him at once." Why 
and wherefore, I don't concern myself, but 
my instructions amount to this : if Signor 
Luigi leaves home to-night for Vienna, well 
and good — the passport deposed with us 
for our visa is really for his own use, they 
have misinformed the Office, and he means 
well ; but let him stay over to-night — there 
has been the pretence we suspect, the ac- 
counts of his corresponding and holding 
intelligence with the Carbonari are correct, 
we arrest him at once, to-morrow comes 
Venice, and presently Spielberg. Bluphocks 
makes the signal sure enough ! That is he, 
entering the turret with his mother, no doubt. 

IQ2 



88 Pippa Passes 

III. — Evening. Inside the Turret on the Hill above 
Asolo. Luigi and his Mother entering. 

MOTHER. 

If there blew wind, you'd hear a long sigh, 

easing 
The utmost heaviness of music's heart. 

LUIGI. 

Here in the archway ? 

MOTHER. 

Oh no, no — in farther, 
Where the echo is made, on the ridge. 

LUIGI. 

Here surely, then. 
How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped 

up! 5 

Hark — " Lucius Junius ! " The very ghost 

of a voice, 



Pippa Passes 89 

Whose body is caught and kept by — what 

are those ? 
Mere withered wallflowers, waving over- 
head ? 
They seem an elvish group with thin bleached 

hair 
That lean out of their topmost fortress — 

look 10 

And listen, mountain men, to what we say, 
Hands under chin of each grave earthy 

face. 
Up and show faces all of you ! — " All of 

you ! " 
That's the king's dwarf with the scarlet 

comb ; old Franz, 
Come down and meet your fate ! Hark — 

"Meet your fate!" 1 5 

MOTHER. 

Let him not meet it, my Luigi — do not 
Go to his city ! Putting crime aside, 
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned ; 



0,0 Pippa Passes 

Your Pellicos and writers for effect J 9 

Write for effect. 

LUIGI. 

Hush ! say A writes and B. 

MOTHER. 

These A's and B's write for effect, I say. 
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good 
Is silent ; you hear each petty injury, 
None of his virtues ; he is old beside, 2 4 

Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. Why 
Do A and B not kill him themselves ? 

LUIGI. 

They teach 
Others to kill him — me — and, if I fail, 
Others to succeed ; now, if A tried and 

failed, 
I could not teach that : mine's the lesser 

task. 29 

Mother, they visit night by night — 






Pippa Passes 91 



MOTHER. 

You, Luigi ? 
Ah, will you let me tell you what you are ? 

LUIGI. 

Why not ? Oh, the one thing you fear to 

hint, 
You may assure yourself I say and say 
Ever to myself. At times — nay, even as now 
We sit — I think my mind is touched, sus- 
pect 35 
All is not sound ; but is not knowing that 
What constitutes one sane or otherwise ? 
I know I am thus — so all is right again. 
I laugh at myself as through the town I 

walk, 
And see men merry as if no Italy 40 

Were suffering ; then I ponder — "I am 

rich, 
Young, healthy ; why should this fact trouble 
me 



92 Pippa Passes 

More than it troubles these ? " But it does 

trouble. 
No, trouble's a bad word ; for as I walk 
There's springing and melody and giddi- 
ness, 45 
And old quaint turns and passages of my 

youth, 
Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves, 
Return to me — whatever may amuse me, 
And earth seems in a truce with me, and 

heaven 
Accords with me, all things suspend their 

strife, 5° 

The very cicala laughs " There goes he, and 

there ! 
Feast him, the time is short ; he is on his 

way 
For the world's sake: feast him this once, 

our friend ! " 
And in return for all this, I can trip 
Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go 55 
This evening, mother ! 



Pippa Passes 93 

MOTHER. 

But mistrust yourself — 
Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on 
him ! 

LUIGI. 

Oh, there I feel — am sure that I am right ! 

MOTHER. 

Mistrust your judgment, then, of the mere 

means 
To this wild enterprise : say you are right, 6° 
How should one in your state e'er bring to 

pass 
What would require a cool head, a cold 

heart, 
And a calm hand ? You never will escape. 

LUIGI. 

Escape ? To even wish that would spoil all. 
The dying is best part of it. Too much 6 5 



94 Pippa Passes 

Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine, 
To leave myself excuse for longer life : 
Was not life pressed down, running o'er with 

That I might finish with it ere my fellows 
Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay ? 
I was put at the board-head, helped to all 7* 
At first ; I rise up happy and content. 
God must be glad one loves his world so 

much. 
I can give news of earth to all the dead 
Who ask me : — last year's sunsets, and great 

stars 75 

That had a right to come first and see ebb 
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away — 
Those crescent moons with notched and 

burning rims 
That strengthened into sharp fire, and there 

stood, 
Impatient of the azure — and that day 80 
In March, a double rainbow stopped the 

storm — 



Pippa Passes 95 

May's warm, slow, yellow moonlit summer 

nights — 
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul ! 

MOTHER. 

(He will not go !) 

LUIGI. 

You smile at me ? 'Tis true, — 
Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness, 8 5 
Environ my devotedness as quaintly 
As round about some antique altar wreathe 
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's 
skulls. 

MOTHER. 

See now : you reach the city, you must cross 
His threshold — how ? 

LUIGI. 

Oh, that's if we conspired ! 

Then would come pains in plenty, as you 

guess — 91 



g6 Pippa Passes 

But guess not how the qualities most fit 
For such an office, qualities I have, 
Would little stead me otherwise employed, 
Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 95 

Every one knows for what his excellence 
Will serve, but no one ever will consider 
For what his worst defect might serve ; and 

yet 
Have you not seen me range our ^coppice 

yonder 
In search of a distorted ash ? I find ioo 

The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow ! 
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned 

man 
Arriving at the palace on my errand ! 
No, no ! I have a handsome dress packed 

up — 
White satin here, to set off my black hair, 105 
In I shall march — for you may watch your 

life out 
Behind thick walls, make friends there to 

betray you ; 



Pippa Passes 97 

More than one man spoils everything. March 

straight — 
Only no clumsy knife to fumble for ! 
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 
Thro' guards and guards — I have rehearsed 

it all in 

Inside the turret here a hundred times. 
Don't ask the way of whom you meet, ob- 
serve, 
But where they cluster thickliest is the door 
Of doors ; they'll let you pass — they'll never 

blab 115 

Each to the other, he knows not the favorite, 
Whence he is bound and what's his business 

now. 
Walk in — straight up to him ; you have no 

knife : 
Be prompt, how should he scream ? Then, 

out with you ! 
Italy, Italy, my Italy ! 120 

You're free, you're free ! Oh, mother, I could 

dream 



98 Pippa Passes 

They got about me — Andrea from his exile, 
Pier from his dungeon, Gaultier from his 
grave ! 

MOTHER. 

Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism 
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 125 

To acquire. He loves himself — and next, 

the world — 
If he must love beyond — but nought be- 
tween : 
As a short-sighted man sees nought midway 
His body and the sun above. But you 
Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient l 3° 

To my least wish, and running o'er with love ; 
I could not call you cruel or unkind. 
Once more, your ground for killing him ! — 
then go ! 

LUIGI. 

Now do you try me, or make sport of me ? 
How first the Austrians got these provinces — 



Pippa Passes 99 

If that is all, I'll satisfy you soon — 13 6 

Never by conquest but by cunning, for 
That treaty whereby — 

MOTHER. 

Well ? 

LUIGI. 

(Sure he's arrived, 
The telltale cuckoo — Spring's his confidant, 
And he lets out her April purposes !) J 4° 

Or — better go at once to modern time — 
He has — they have — in fact, I understand 
But can't restate the matter ; that's my 

boast : 
Others could reason it out to you, and prove 
Things they have made me feel. 

MOTHER. 

Why go to-night ? 
Morn's for adventure. Jupiter is now 146 
A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi ! 

L.ofC. 



ioo Pippa Passes 

LUIGI. 

"I am the bright and morning-star," saith 
God — 

And, " to such an one I give the morning- 
star ! " 

The gift of the morning-star ! Have I God's 
gift 150 

Of the morning-star ? 

MOTHER. 

Chiara will love to see 
That Jupiter an evening-star next June. 

LUIGI. 

True, mother. Well for those who live 

through June ! 
Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring 

pomps 
Which triumph at the heels of June the God 
Leading his revel thro' our leafy world. T 5 6 
Yes, Chiara will be here — 



Pippa Passes ioi 

MOTHER. 

In June : remember, 
Yourself appointed that month for her 
coming. 

LUIGL 

Was that low noise the echo ? 

MOTHER. 

The night-wind. 
She must be grown — with her blue eyes 
upturned l6 ° 

As if life were one long and sweet surprise : 
In June she comes. 

LUIGI. 

We were to see together 
The Titian at Treviso. There, again ! 

{From without is heard the voice of Pippa singing^ 

A king lived long ago, 

In the morning of the world, l6 5 



102 Pippa Passes 

When earth was nigher heaven than now ; 
And the king's locks curled, 
Disparting o'er a forehead full 
As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and 

horn 
Of some sacrificial bull — J 7° 

Only calm as a babe new-born : 
For he was got to a sleepy mood, 
So safe from all decrepitude, 
Age with its bane, so sure gone by — 
The gods so loved him while he dreamed,^ 
That, having lived thus long, there seemed 
No need the king should ever die. 

LUIGI. 

No need that sort of king should ever die ! 

Among the rocks his city was : 

Before his palace, in the sun, 18? 

He sat to see his people pass, 

And judge them every one 

From its threshold of smooth stone. 



Pippa Passes 103 

They haled him many a valley-thief 
Caught in the sheep-pens, robber chief l8 5 
Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat, 
Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found 
On the sea-sand left aground ; 
And sometimes clung about his feet, 
With bleeding lip and burning cheek, J 9° 
A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 
Of one with sullen thickset brows ; 
And sometimes from the prison-house 
The angry priests a pale wretch brought, 
Who through some chink had pushed 

and pressed, x 95 

On knees and elbows, belly and breast, 
Worm-like into the temple, — caught 
At last there by the very god, 
Who ever in the darkness strode 
Backward and forward, keeping watch 200 
O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to 

catch ! 
These, all and every one, 
The king judged, sitting in the sun. 



104 Pippa Passes 

LUIGI. 

That king should still judge sitting in the sun ! 

His councillors, on left and right, 2 °5 

Looked anxious up, — but no surprise 
Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes, 
Where the very blue had turned to white. 
Tis said, a Python scared one day 
The breathless city, till he came, 2I ° 

With forky tongue and eyes on flame, 
Where the old king sat to judge alway; 
But when he saw the sweepy hair, 
Girt with a crown of berries rare 2I 4 

Which the god will hardly give to wear 
To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare 
In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, 
At his wondrous forest rites — 
Seeing this, he did not dare 
Approach that threshold in the sun, 22 ° 
Assault the old king smiling there. 
TSuch grace had kings when the world 
begun ! (Pippa passes) 



Pippa Passes 105 

LUIGI. 

And such grace have they, now that the 

world ends ! 
The Python at the city, on the throne, 
And brave men, God would crown for slaying 

him, 225 

Lurk in by-corners lest they fall his prey. 
Are crowns yet to be won, in this late time, 
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach ? 
Tis God's voice calls, how could I stay? 

Farewell ! 

Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the 
Turret to the Bishop's brother's House, close to 
the Duomo Santa Maria. Poor Girls sitting on 
the steps. 

FIRST GIRL. 

There goes a swallow to Venice — the stout 

sea-farer ! 
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for 

wings. 
Let us all wish ; you, wish first ! 



io6 Pippa Passes 



To finish. 



SECOND GIRL. 

I ? This sunset 

THIRD GIRL. 



That old — somebody I know, 
Grayer and older than my grandfather, S 

To give me the same treat he gave last week — 
Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers, 
Lampreys, and red Breganze-wine, and 

mumbling 
The while some folly about how well I fare, 
Let sit and eat my supper quietly — 10 

Since had he not himself been late this 

morning, 
Detained at — never mind where, — had he 

not — 
" Eh, baggage, had I not ! " — 

SECOND GIRL. 

How she can lie ! 



Pippa Passes 107 

FIRST GIRL. 

My turn. 
Spring's come and summer's coming : I would 

wear 
A long loose gown — down to the feet and 

hands. I S 

With plaits here, close about the throat, all 

day; 
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in 

bed ; 
And have new milk to drink, apples to eat, 
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats — ah, 

I should say, J 9 

That is away in the fields — miles ! 

THIRD GIRL. 

Say at once 
You'd be at home — she'd always be at 

home ! 
Now comes the story of the farm among 
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed 



108 Pippa Passes 

White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool, 
They've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall 

you were, 25 

Twisted your starling's neck, broken his 

cage, 
Made a dunghill of your garden ! 

FIRST GIRL. 

They destroy 
My garden since I left them ? well — per- 
haps ! 
I would have done so — so I hope they have ! 
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall ; 3° 
They called it mine, I have forgotten why, 
It must have been there long ere I was born : 
Cric — eric — I think I hear the wasps o'er- 

head 
Pricking the papers strung to flutter there 
And keep off birds in fruit-time — coarse 
long papers, 35 

And the wasps eat them, prick them through 
and through. 



Pippa Passes 109 

THIRD GIRL. 

How her mouth twitches ! Where was I ? 

— before 
She broke in with her wishes and long gowns 
And wasps — would I be such a fool ? — Oh, 

here ! 39 

See how that beetle burnishes in the path ! 
There sparkles he along the dust ; and, there — 
Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at 

least ! 

FIRST GIRL. 

When I was young, they said if you killed 

one 
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend 
Up there would shine no more that day nor 

next. 45 

SECOND GIRL. 

When you were young ? Nor are you young, 

that's true ! 
How your plump arms, that were, have 

dropped away ! 



no Pippa Passes 

Why, I can span them ! Cecco beats you still ? 
No matter, so you keep your curious hair. 
I wish they'd find a way to dye our hair 5° 
Your color — any lighter tint, indeed, 
Than black — the men say they are sick of 

black, 
Black eyes, black hair ! 

FOURTH GIRL. 

Sick of yours, like enough ! 
Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys 
And ortolans ? Giovita, of the palace, 55 
Engaged (but there's no trusting him) to 

slice me 
Polenta with a knife that had cut up 
An ortolan. 

SECOND GIRL. 

Why, there ! is not that Pippa 
We are to talk to, under the window, — 
quick, — 59 

Where the lights are ? 



Pippa Passes in 

FIRST GIRL. 

That she ? No, or she would sing. 
For the Intendant said — 

THIRD GIRL. 

Oh, you sing first ! 
Then, if she listens and comes close — I'll 

tell you, 
Sing that song the young English noble made, 
Who took you for the purest of the pure, 
And meant to leave the world for you — what 

fun ! 65 

SECOND GIRL. 

[Sings.] 

You'll love me yet ! — and I can tarry 
Your love's protracted growing : 

June reared that bunch of flowers you carry 
From seeds of April's sowing. 

I plant a heartful now : some seed 70 

At least is sure to strike 



112 Pippa Passes 

And yield — what you'll not pluck indeed, 
Not love, but, may be, like. 

You'll look at least on love's remains, 

A grave's one violet : 75 

Your look ? — that pays a thousand pains. 
What's death ? — you'll love me yet ! 

third, girl (to Pippa, who approaches). 

Oh, you may come closer — we shall not 
eat you ! Why, you seem the very person 
that the great rich handsome Englishman has 
fallen so violently in love with ! I'll tell you 
all about it. 82 



IV Night. The Palace by the Duomo. Mon- 

signor, dismissing his Attendants. 

MONSIGNOR. 

Thanks, friends, many thanks. I chiefly 
desire life now, that I may recompense every 
one of you. Most I know something of al- 



Oh, you may come closer — we shall not eat 

you!" 
Photogravure. From drawing by Louis Meynelle. 



i,i 




Pippa Passes 113 

ready. What, a repast prepared ? Benedicto 
benedicatur — ugh ! — ugh ! Where was I ? 
Oh, as you were remarking, Ugo, the weather 
is mild, very unlike winter weather; but I 
am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your 
Julys here. To be sure, when 'twas full 
summer at Messina, as we priests used to 
cross in procession the great square on As- 
sumption Day, you might see our thickest 
yellow tapers twist suddenly in two, each like 
a falling star, or sink down on themselves in 
a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go ! 
[To the Intendant] Not you, Ugo ! [The 
others leave the apartment^ I have long 
wanted to converse with you, Ugo ! 18 

INTENDANT. 

Uguccio — 

MONSIGNOR. 

— 'Guccio Stefani, man ! of Ascoli, Fermo, 
and Fossombruno ; — what I do need in- 



H4 Pippa Passes 

structing about are these accounts of your 
administration of my poor brother's affairs. 
Ugh ! I shall never get through a third part 
of your accounts : take some of these dain- 
ties before we attempt it, however. Are 
you bashful to that degree ? For me, a 
crust and water suffice. 

INTENDANT. 

Do you choose this especial night to ques- 
tion me ? 30 

MONSIGNOR. 

This night, Ugo. You have managed my 
late brother's affairs since the death of our 
elder brother — fourteen years and a month, 
all but three days. On the 3d of December, 
I find him — 35 

INTENDANT. 

If you have so intimate an acquaintance 
with your brother's affairs, you will be tender 



Pippa Passes 1 1 5 

of turning so far back : they will hardly 
bear looking into, so far back. 39 

MONSIGNOR. 

Ay, ay, ugh,' ugh, — nothing but disap- 
pointments here below ! I remark a consid- 
erable payment made to yourself on this 3d 
of December. Talk of disappointments ! 
There was a young fellow here, Jules, a 
foreign sculptor I did my utmost to advance, 
that the Church might be a gainer by us 
both : he was going on hopefully enough, 
and of a sudden he notifies to me some mar- 
vellous change that has happened in his 
notions of art. Here's his letter : " He 
never had a clearly conceived ideal within his 
brain till to-day. Yet since his hand could 
manage a chisel, he has practised expressing 
other men's ideals ; and, in the very perfec- 
tion he has attained to, he foresees an ulti- 
mate failure. His unconscious hand will 
pursue its prescribed course of old years, 



1 1 6 Pippa Passes 

and will reproduce with a fatal expertness 
the ancient types, let the novel one appear 
never so palpably to his spirit. There is but 
one method of escape ; confiding the virgin 
type to as chaste a hand, he will turn painter 
instead of sculptor, and paint, not carve, its 
characteristics," — strike out, I dare say, a 
school like Correggio. How think you, 
Ugo ? 66 

INTENDANT. 

Is Correggio a painter ? 

MONSIGNOR. 

Foolish Jules ! and yet, after all, why fool- 
ish ? He may, probably will, fail egregiously ; 
but if there should arise a new painter, will 
it not be in some such way by a poet now, or 
a musician — spirits who have conceived and 
perfected an ideal through some other chan- 
nel — transferring it to this, and escaping our 
conventional roads by pure ignorance of 



Pippa Passes 1 1 7 

them ; eh, Ugo ? If you have no appetite, 
talk at least, Ugo ! 77 

INTENDANT. 

Sir, I can submit no longer to this course 
of yours. First, you select the group of 
which I formed one ; next you thin it gradu- 
ally, — always retaining me with your smile, 
— and so do you proceed till you have fairly 
got me alone with you between four stone 
walls. And now then ? Let this farce, this 
chatter, end now — what is it you want with 
me ? 86 



Ugo 



MONSIGNOR. 



INTENDANT. 



From the instant you arrived, I felt your 
smile on me as you questioned me about this 
and the other article in those papers — why 
your brother should have given me this villa, 



1 1 8 Pippa Passes 

that podere, — and your nod at the end 
meant — what ? 93 

MONSIGNOR. 

Possibly that I wished for no loud talk 
here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo ! — 

INTENDANT. 

I have your brother's hand and seal to all 
I possess. Now ask me what for ! what ser- 
vice I did him — ask me ! 9 8 

MONSIGNOR. 

I would better not : I should rip up old 
disgraces, let out my poor brother's weak- 
nesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli — 
which, I forgot to observe, is your true name 
— was the interdict ever taken off you, for 
robbing that church at Cesena ? 104 

INTENDANT. 

No, nor needs be ; for when I murdered 
your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him — 



Pippa Passes 119 

MONSIGNOR. 

Ah, he employed you in that business, did 
he ? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, 
this villa and that podere, for fear the world 
should find out my relations were of so indif- 
ferent a stamp ! Maffeo, my family is the 
oldest in Messina, and century after century 
have my progenitors gone on polluting them- 
selves with every wickedness under heaven. 
My own father — rest his soul ! — I have, 
I know, a chapel to support that it may rest ; 
my dear two dead brothers were — what you 
know tolerably well ; I, the youngest, might 
have rivalled them in vice, if not in wealth, 
but from my boyhood I came out from 
among them, and so am not partaker of their 
plagues. My glory springs from another 
source ; or if from this, by contrast only, — 
for I, the bishop, am the brother of your em- 
ployers, Ugo. I hope to repair some of their 
wrong, however : so far as my brother's ill- 



120 Pippa Passes 

gotten treasure reverts to me, I can stop the 
consequences of his crime ; and not one soldo 
shall escape me. Maffeo, the sword we quiet 
men spurn away, you shrewd knaves pick up 
and commit murders with ; what opportuni- 
ties the virtuous forego, the villainous seize. 
Because, to pleasure myself, apart from other 
considerations, my food would be millet-cake, 
my dress sackcloth, and my couch straw, — 
am I therefore to let you, the offscouring of 
the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant, by 
appropriating a pomp these will be sure to 
think lessens the abominations so unaccount- 
ably and exclusively associated with it ? 
Must I let villas and poderi go to you, a mur- 
derer and thief, that you may beget by 
means of them other murderers and thieves ? 
No — if my cough would but allow me to 
speak! 145 

INTEND ANT. 

What am I to expect ? You are going to 
punish me ? 



Pippa Passes 12 1 

MONSIGNOR. 

Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot afford 
to cast away a chance. I have whole centu- 
ries of sin to redeem, and only a month or 
two of life to do it in. How should I dare 
to say — 15 2 

INTENDANT. 

" Forgive us our trespasses ? " 

MONSIGNOR. 

My friend, it is because I avow myself a 
very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I 
reject a line of conduct you would applaud, 
perhaps. Shall I proceed, as it were, a-par- 
doning ? I, who have no symptom of reason 
to assume that aught less than my strenuous- 
est efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, 
much less keep others out. No. I do tres- 
pass, but will not double that by allowing 
you to trespass. l6 3 



122 Pippa Passes 

INTENDANT. 

And suppose the villas are not your broth- 
er's to give, nor yours to take ? Oh, you are 
hasty enough just now ! 166 

MONSIGNOR. 

One, two — No. 3 ! — ay, can you read the 
substance of a letter, No. 3, I have received 
from Rome ? It is precisely on the ground 
there mentioned, of the suspicion I have that 
a certain child of my late elder brother, who 
would have succeeded to his estates, was 
murdered in infancy by you, Maffeo, at the 
instigation of my late brother — that the 
Pontiff enjoins on me not merely the bring- 
ing that Maffeo to condign punishment, but 
the taking all pains, as guardian of the in- 
fant's heritage for the Church, to recover it 
parcel by parcel, howsoever, whensoever, and 
wheresoever. While you are now gnawing 
those fingers, the police are engaged in seal- 



Pippa Passes 123 

ing up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere 
raising my voice brings my people from the 
next room to dispose of yourself. But I 
want you to confess quietly, and save me 
raising my voice. Why, man, do I not know 
the old story ? The heir between the suc- 
ceeding heir, and this heir's ruffianly in- 
strument, and their complot's effect, and the 
life of fear and bribes and ominous smiling 
silence ? Did you throttle or stab my 
brother's infant ? Come, now ! i9 2 



INTENDANT. 

So old a story, and tell it no better ? 
When did such an instrument ever produce 
such an effect ? Either the child smiles in 
his face, or, most likely, he is not fool 
enough to put himself in the employer's 
power so thoroughly ; the child is always 
ready to produce — as you say — howsoever, 
wheresoever, and whensoever. 200 



124 Pippa Passes 



MONSIGNOR. 



Liar! 



INTENDANT. 

Strike me ? Ah, so might a father chas- 
tise ! I shall sleep soundly to-night at least, 
though the gallows await me to-morrow ; for 
what a life did I lead ! Carlo of Cesena re- 
minds me of his connivance, every time I 
pay his annuity — which happens commonly 
thrice a year. If I remonstrate, he will con- 
fess all to the good bishop — you ! 2 °9 

MONSIGNOR. 

I see thro' the trick, caitiff ! I would you 
spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, 
however — seven times sifted. 

INTENDANT. 

And how my absurd riches encumbered 
me ! I dared not lay claim to above half my 



Pippa Passes 125 

possessions. Let me but once unbosom my- 
self, glorify Heaven, and die ! — Sir, you are 
no brutal, dastardly idiot like your brother I 
frightened to death : let us understand one 
another. Sir, I will make away with her for 
you — the girl — here close at hand ; not the 
stupid obvious kind of killing ; do not speak 
— know nothing of her or me ! I see her 
every day — saw her this morning. Of course 
there is to be no killing ; but at Rome the 
courtesans perish off every three years, and 
I can entice her thither — have, indeed, be- 
gun operations already. There's a certain 
lusty, blue-eyed, florid-complexioned English 
knave I and the police employ occasionally. 
You assent, I perceive — no, that's not it — 
assent I do not say — but you will let me 
convert my present havings and holdings into 
cash, and give me time to cross the Alps ? 
'Tis but a little black-eyed, pretty singing 
Felippa, gay silk-winding girl. I have kept 
her out of harm's way up to this present ; 



126 Pippa Passes 

for I always intended to make your life a 
plague to you with her. 'Tis as well settled 
once and forever. Some women I have pro- 
cured will pass Bluphocks, my handsome 
scoundrel, off for somebody ; and once Pippa 
entangled ! — you conceive ? Through her 
singing ? Is it a bargain ? 243 

(From without is heard the voice of Pippa singing) 

Overhead the treetops meet, 

Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ; 

There was nought above me, nought below, 

My childhood had not learned to know ; 

For what are the voices of birds — 

Ay, and of beasts — but words, our words, 

Only so much more sweet ? 2 5° 

The knowledge of that with my life begun. 

But I had so near made out the sun, 

And counted your stars, the seven and one, 

Like the fingers of my hand : 

Nay, I could all but understand 255 



' Overhead the treetops meet, 
Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ' 
Photogravure. From drawing by Louis Meynelle. 



Pippa Passes 127 

Wherefore through heaven the white moon 

ranges ; 
And just when out of her soft fifty changes 
No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 
Suddenly God took me ! 2 59 

(Pippa passes) 

MONSIGNOR. 

1 

[Springing tip.'] My people — one and all 
— all — within there ! Gag this villain — tie 
him hand and foot ! He dares — I know not 
half he dares — but remove him — quick! 
Miserere mei, Domine ! quick, I say ! 264 

Pippa's Chamber again. She enters it. 

The bee with his comb, 
The mouse at her dray, 
The grub in its tomb, 
Wile winter away ; 

But the firefly and hedge-shrew and lobworm, 
I pray, 5 



128 Pippa Passes 

How fare they ? 

Ha, ha, best thanks for your counsel, my 

Zanze ! 
" Feast upon lampreys, quaff the Breganze" — 
The summer of life so easy to spend, I0 

And care for to-morrow so soon put away ! 
But winter hastens at summer's end, 
And firefly, hedge-shrew, lobworm, pray, 
How fare they ? 

No bidding me then to — what did she say ? 
"Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small 

feet shoes J 5 

More like" — what said she? — "and less 

like canoes ! " 
How pert that girl was ! — would I be those 

pert, 
Impudent, staring women ? It had done me, 
However, surely no such mighty hurt 
To learn his name who passed that jest upon 

me : 2 ° 

No foreigner, that I can recollect, 
Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect 



Pippa Passes 129 

Our silk-mills — none with blue eyes and 

thick rings 
Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. 
Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, 2 5 
We shall do better, see what next year 

brings ! 
I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear 
More destitute than you perhaps next year ! 
Bluph — something ! I had caught the un- 
couth name 2 9 
But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter 
Above us — bound to spoil such idle chat- 
ter 
As ours ; it were, indeed, a serious matter 
If silly talk like ours should put to shame 
The pious man, the man devoid of blame, 
The — ah, but — ah, but, all the same, 35 
No mere mortal has a right 
To carry that exalted air ; 
Best people are not angels quite : 
While — not the worst of people's doings 
scare 



130 Pippa Passes 

The devil ; so there's that proud look to 
spare ! 40 

Which is mere counsel to myself, mind ! for 
I have just been the holy Monsignor ! 
And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother, 
And you too, Luigi ! — how that Luigi 

started 
Out of the turret — doubtlessly departed 45 
On some good errand or another, 
For he passed just now in a traveller's trim, 
And the sullen company that prowled 
About his path, I noticed, scowled 
As if they had lost a prey in him. 5° 

And I was Jules the sculptor's bride, 
And I was Ottima beside, 
And now what am I ? — tired of fooling. 
Day for folly, night for schooling ! 
New- Year's day is over and spent, 55 

111 or well, I must be content ! 

Even my lily's asleep, I vow : 
Wake up — here's a friend I've plucked you ! 
Call this flower a heart's-ease now ! 



Pippa Passes 131 

Something rare, let me instruct you, 6o 

Is this, with petals triply swollen, 

Three times spotted, thrice the pollen, 

While the leaves and parts that witness 

The old proportions and their fitness 

Here remain unchanged, unmoved now — 65 

Call this pampered thing improved now ! 

Suppose there's a king of the flowers, 

And a girl-show held in his bowers — 

" Look ye, buds, this growth of ours," 

Says he, " Zanze from the Brenta, 1° 

I have made her gorge polenta 

Till both cheeks are near as bouncing 

As her — name there's no pronouncing ! 

See this heightened color too, 

For she swilled Breganze wine 75 

Till her nose turned deep carmine — 

'Twas but white when wild she grew. 

And only by this Zanze' s eyes, 

Of which we could not change the size, 

The magnitude of all achieved 8o 

Otherwise may be perceived ! " 



132 Pippa Passes 

Oh, what a drear, dark close to my poor day ! 
How could that red sun drop in that black 

cloud ? 
Ah, Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, 
Dispensed with, never more to be allowed \%5 
Day's turn is over — now arrives the night's. 

lark, be day's apostle 

To mavis, merle, and throstle, 

Bid them their betters jostle 

From day and its delights ! 9° 

But at night, brother howlet, over the woods, 

Toll the world to thy chantry ; 

Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods 

Full complines with gallantry ; 

Then, owls and bats, 95 

Cowls and twats, 

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods, 

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry ! 

[After she has begun to undress herself 
Now, one thing I should like to really know : 
How near I ever might approach all these 

1 only fancied being, this long day — IDI 



Pippa Passes 133 

Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so 
As to — in some way — move them — if you 

please, 
Do good or evil to them some slight way. 
For instance, if I wind 105 

Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind 

\Sitting on the bedside. 
And broider Ottima's cloak's hem. 
Ah, me, and my important part with them, 
This morning's hymn half promised when I 

rose ! 
True in some sense or other, I suppose. J I0 

\As she lies down. 
God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say 
right. 
All service ranks the same with God 
With God, whose puppets, best and worst, 
Are we : there is no last nor first. "5 

\She sleeps. 
THE END. 



NOTES 



Prologue. — Asolo. A small fortified town in the 
province of Treviso, about thirty miles from Venice. 
It is situated on a hill commanding a fine prospect. 
Asolo was known to the ancients as Ascelum, and it 
still contains the ruins of a Roman aqueduct. Silk- 
growing is the leading industry. Browning was ex- 
ceedingly fond of the town, both in his youth and old 
age. His last volume was named after it, " Aso- 
lando." Asolo is encircled by a massive wall, and 
has an old cathedral, beside other prominent buildings. 

i. Day. The irregular, hurrying lines, gradually 
lengthening from the monosyllable of the first line to 
the twelve syllables of the twelfth, are admirably 
suggestive of the advancing dawn. 

20. Asolo. The poet places the accent on the first 
syllable, although it properly falls on the second. He 
uses the same poetic license in 11. 42 and 64 below. 

40. Feel. Feeling, as commonly in Middle English. 

62. Monsignor. The Bishop, who has control of 
his brother's estates, as is subsequently made clear in 
J35 



136 Notes 

the course of the play. For the other leading char- 
acters, see Introduction. 

88. Martagon. A species of lily (Liliu?n martagon)^ 
commonly known as " Turk's cap." 

89. Saint Agnes. A virgin martyr of the fourth 
century; the Saint Agnes of Keats's famous poem. 
Pippa evidently has in mind some painting in the 
cathedral. 

90. Turk bird. Turkey. The familiar domestic 
fowl is sometimes called Turk bird since it is sup- 
posed to come from Turkey. 

100. Weevil and chafer. Insects of the beetle 
family; the latter is also called May-bug and cock- 
chafer. 

102. Gibe. Flout. 

120. Old Luca. Ottima's hated husband. 

131. Possagno church. Possagno, a village four 
miles from Asolo, was the birthplace of Canova, who 
designed its famous church. The latter is in the 
form of a circular temple, and contains an altar-piece 
by the great artist, as well as his tomb. It is singu- 
larly appropriate that the wedding of a sculptor 
should take place in this church. 

166. Our turret. Evidently one of the towers of 
the old walls. 

169. Each to each. The reference is to Luigi and 
his mother. 



Notes 137 

181. The Palace by the Dome. The Bishop's Pal- 
ace, which adjoins the cathedral [Duomo or Dome) 

213. Cicala. Italian for cicada, or locust. 

Scene I. — 4. Your Rhine land nights. " There is 
an especial dramatic purpose in making Sebald a 
German. The Italian temperament would not be 
capable of so strong a reaction as he suffers." 
(Rolfe.) 

28. St. Mark's. The cathedral at Venice. Al- 
though thirty miles distant, it can be seen from the 
hill of Asolo on a clear day. 

29-30. Vicenza, Padua. Towns about twenty-five 
miles distant from Asolo. Vicenza is southwest of 
Asolo, and Padua directly south. 

45. His blood. Note the effect of crime in com- 
pelling the mind to dwell upon certain words which 
haunt the imagination and constantly recall the dread- 
ful memory. Compare " Macbeth " ii. 2. 31. 

53. Wittol. A compliant or contented cuckold. 

56. Black ? The resemblance of the dark wine to 
blood repels him. 

58. Duomo. Cathedral. Cf. Prologue, 181. 

59. Capuchin. The Capuchin monks are a branch 
of the Franciscan order. They wear a brown habit. 

76. Proof-mark. The sign which indicates that a 
print is among the first impressions from the plate. 
80. Coil. Fuss, ado. 



138 Notes 

116. He is turned. It is a common superstition 
that the face of a murdered man looks skyward for 
vengeance. 

119. Four gray hairs. Ottima is probably older 
than Sebald. Cf. 228 below. 

167. Campanula. A genus of flowers having bell- 
shaped corollas, and known as harebell, or bell-flower. 
(Lat. catnpanula, little bell.) 

185. Swift ran, etc. Cf. Browning's wonderful pic- 
ture of a thunder-storm in " The Ring and the Book. 5 ' 
("The Pope," 21 18, et seq.) 

189. Plunged and rep lunged his weapon at a ven- 
Uire. A marvellous stroke of the imagination. 

Interlude I. — Giovacchino. The poet Giovac- 
chino evidently resorted to the honorable expedient 
of flight in order to escape some unworthy passion. 
Cf. Biblical story of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar. 
It is also possible that the woman's love referred to is 
pure but unreciprocated and unwelcome, and that the 
flight is instigated by consideration for her happiness. 
In either case, any conduct indicating self-control or 
moral principle could win nothing but sneers from 
such fellows as those forming this group of speakers. 

17. Trieste. A city of Austria-Hungary at the head 
of the gulf of the same name, at the northeastern 
extremity of the Adriatic. It is seventy-three miles 
northeast of Venice. 



Notes 139 

19. Bluphocks. This odd name means " Blue-Fox," 
and is said by Furnivall to be " a skit on the Edinburgh 
Review, which is bound in a cover of blue and fox." 
Rolfe calls Bluphocks " the only unredeemed villain 
whom Browning has created." See Interlude ii. 1. 

24. sEsculaftius. The god of medicine. Giovac- 
chino is ridiculed for regarding love as a disease to 
be cured instead of a passion to be enjoyed, and it is 
maliciously suggested that his new epic take /Escula- 
pius for its hero and that various drugs be called into 
requisition to cure the love-sick victim. 

34. Et canibus nostris. And to our dogs. From 
Virgil, Eclogues, iii. 67 : " Notior ut jam sit canibus 
non Delia nostris." 

42. In a tale. Bound to tell the same story. Cf. 
Shakespeare, " Much Ado About Nothing," iv. 2. 281 

in. Psiche-fanciulla. One of the most faultless of 
Canova's works, representing Psyche (Psiche) as a 
maiden with a butterfly. Fanciulla is Italian for 
young girl. Canova's Psyche is in the gallery at 
Possagno. 

117. Pieta. Shortly before his death, Canova pro- 
duced this statue of the Virgin with the dead Christ 
in her arms, for the church at Possagno. 

139. Mala?nocco. "The Lagoon, immediately op- 
posite to Venice, is closed by a long shoaly island, 
Malamocco " (Murray). On this island, which forms 



140 Notes 

part of the boundary of the harbor of Venice, is a 
small town of the same name. 

141. Alciphron. A Greek philosopher and epistol- 
ary writer of the age of Alexander the Great. 

146. Lire. Plural of lira, an Italian coin equiva- 
lent to the French franc, or equal to about twenty 
cents of our money. 

149. Tydeus. An Homeric hero who was a leader 
in the expedition against Thebes. He was a son of 
^neus, King of Colydon. Academy. The Academy 
of Fine Arts, Venice. 

153. Fenice. Phenix, the principal theatre in Ven- 
ice. 

177. Hannibal Scratchy. A burlesque spelling of 
the name of the celebrated Italian painter, Annibale 
Caracci. 

Scene II. — 26. Psyche. Psyche {i.e. the soul) was 
very beautiful, and was beloved by Cupid. Venus, 
however, hated and persecuted her. Cupid finally 
made her his wife, and Psyche gained immortality. 

39. Minion, favorite. Cf. Shakespeare, " Cyrnba- 
line," ii. 3. 39 : " The exile of her minion is too new." 
Coluthus. A Greek epic poet of the sixth century, 
whose " Rape of Helen," was discovered by Cardinal 
Bessarion, a Greek scholar (1395-1472), noted for 
his profound and varied learning} and his reverence 
for the literature and traditions of Greece. Jules 



Notes 141 

seems to have had an illuminated copy made by the 
cardinal's scribe. 

40. Bistre. "A dark brown paint, made from the 
soot of wood." 

46. He said, and on Antinous, etc. See Odyssey, 
xxii. 1 o. Antinous was the first among the suitors of 
Penelope to meet his fate at the hands of Ulysses. 
He fell, pierced in the neck by the " bitter shaft." 

$0. Almaign Kaiser. German emperor. 

5 1 . Truncheon. A short staff, emblematic of high 
office. 

54. Hippolyta. Queen of the Amazons. 

55. Numidian. Numidia was a country in the 
northern part of Africa, corresponding in the main 
with the modern Algeria. 

59. Thunder-free. A crown of bay or laurel was 
thought by the ancients to be a protection against 
lightning. 

61. Hipparchus. The son of Pisistratus, tyrant of 
Athens, who was slain (b. c. 514) by Harmodius and 
Aristogeiton. His tragic fate was a favorite subject 
for drinking songs. The daggers with which the 
despot was stabbed were concealed in the myrtle- 
branches carried by the assassins at the festival of 
the Panathenasa. Cf. " Childe Harold," iii. 20. 

j 5. Parsley crowns. "The leaves of a species of 
parsley (Apimn graveolens, our celery) were much 



142 Notes 

used by the ancients in garlands on account of 
their strong fragrance, especially in drinking-bouts." 
(Rolfe.) 

92. Dryad. Wood nymph. 

95. Chalk. Crayon. 

98. Steel. Tool of the engraver. 

108. Flesh. In the same construction as metal ', 
1. 106. 

181. I am a ftai7iter. These verses, designed to 
reveal the diabolical plot, are mystical and involved 
in manner, but plainly convey the meaning that Jules 
is to be wounded through his love, in conformity with 
the revengeful schemes of Lutwyche, whose jealous 
hatred takes this means of delivering the artist a 
mortal blow. Jules is furnished unmistakable evi- 
dence that the woman he has idealized possesses 
neither strength of mind nor purity of character. 

257. To eternally reprove. The "split infinitive," 
usually avoided by careful prose writers, is sometimes 
made necessary in poetry by the exigencies of metre. 

258. Kate the Queen. Caterina Cornaro, born c. 
1454, a native of Venice and the last queen of Cyprus, 
was forced to resign her kingdom to the Venetians in 
1489. Her abdication was attended with unusual 
ceremony, and her journey from Cyprus to Venice 
was a tour of triumph. On her arrival at Venice, 
she was received with distinguished honor by the 



Notes 143 

Doge and Senate, and was assigned for a place of 
residence the Chateau Fort of Asolo. In the latter 
town, Caterina formed a small court, and wielded 
her brief and very circumscribed authority with firm- 
ness and grace. She died in Venice in 1510. 

270. Jesses. Straps of leather or silk, fitted to the 
legs of a hawk, to which the line held in the fal- 
coner's hand is attached. Cf. " Othello," iii. 3. 261. 

272. The Cornaro. The castle at Asolo, built in 
the thirteenth century, which was the residence of 
Caterina Cornaro (" Kate the Queen "), after her 
abdication of the throne of Cyprus. 

276. Grace. Favor. 

290. The visionary butterfly. Symbol of the soul, 
and of immortality. 

306. Henceforth. Thenceforth, from that time. 
Ancona. A city of Central Italy, on the coast of 
the Adriatic; capital of the province of the same 
name. 

Interlude II. — 1. Bluphocks. The foot-note 
which Browning adds seems to be a " half-apology 
for creating a character of so unmixed evil " (Rolfe), 
and a plea for the reader's tolerance toward the 
depraved scoundrel. 

3. Intendant. The superintendent in charge of the 
estate just inherited by the Bishop from his brother. 
The "Intendant's money" refers to the bribe of 



144 Notes 

Maffeo, whose plot has for its end the doing away 
with Pippa, the real heiress of the estate. 

10. Grig. Cricket. Cf. Tennyson, "The Brook," 
54 : " High-elbowed grigs that leap in summer 
grass." 

13. Armenian. The Armenian Church divided 
from the Roman Catholic in 491. It has its own 
Pope (" Catholicos "). 

14. Kcenigsberg. A fortified city of East Prussia, 
338 miles northeast of Berlin, and ranking as the 
third city in the dominion. It is capital of the 
government of the same name. 

15. Prussia Improper. Prussia Proper was the 
name applied to the arm of land bounded on the 
north by the Baltic and on the south by Poland, in 
order to distinguish it from the other provinces of 
the kingdom. 

18. Chaldee. A Semitic dialect. 

26. Syriac. Syriac was the common language in 
Western Asia from the third to the eighth century. 
It still exists as the ecclesiastical language in the 
Syrian churches. Vowels. The Syriac language has 
five vowels designated by the Greek vowels inverted. 

28. Celarent, Darii, Ferio. Coined words employed 
in logic. They are in the first of " five mnemonic 
lines used by logicians to designate the nineteen valid 
forms of the syllogism." 



Notes 145 

32. Posy. Contraction of "poesy" — a verse, or 
motto. Cf. " Merchant of Venice," v. 1. 148 : 

" A paltry ring 
That she did give me, whose posy was 
For all the world like cutler's poetry 
Upon a knife." 

33. Hocus-po cussed. Juggled. Fly and locust. Cf. 
Exodus, viii. 20 and x. 4. Tarshish. Introduced 
arbitrarily for the sake of the rhyme. It was not to 
Tarshish but to Nineveh that God commanded Jonah 
to go. Cf. Jonah, i. 

36. How the angel, etc. Cf. Numbers, xxii. 22, 
et seq. 

43. Bishop Beveridge. A Calvinist theologian 
(1636-1707). The pun on the name is obvious. 

45. Charon's wherry. Charon was the son of 
Erebus. It was his office to carry the shades of the 
dead in his boat across the River Styx. Cf. Stygian 
ferry, 1. 51, below. In return for his service, Charon 
was paid with an obolus (a small silver Athenian 
coin), placed in the mouth of the corpse before 
burial. 

47. Lupine-seed. A kind of pulse. " In plant-lore, 
' lupine ' means wolfish, and is suggestive of the Evil 
One " (" Flower-lore," Friend, p. 59). Hecate. A 
goddess of the underworld who was greatly feared, 



1 46 Notes 

and who was thought to be propitiated by frequent 
offerings of eggs, fish, onions, etc. These gifts of 
food were usually placed at cross-roads. 

51. Zwanzigers. An Austrian coin worth twenty 
kreutzers, or about fifteen cents. 

61. Prince Metternich. A famous Austrian states- 
man (1 773-1859), whose policy was one of conserva- 
tism and repression. He was prime minister during 
the most eventful years of the reign of Napoleon. It 
is to him that the well-known saying is attributed : 
" Apres moi, le deluge ! " 

70. Panurge consults Hertrippa. Panurge is a 
character in Rabelais's romance, " Gargantua and 
PantagrueL" He consults the magician Hertrippa 
in regard to his marriage. 

71. King Agrippa. Cf. Acts xxvi. 27. 

73. Your head and a ripe mtiskmelon. Cf. the 
old English proverb : "He that loseth his wife and 
sixpence hath lost a tester" (the tester being six- 
pence). 

80. That English fooVs, etc. There is no occasion 
for fear that the man whom they are watching will 
escape while they are talking. 

92. Deposed. Deposited. 

93. Visa. An endorsement made by the police 
upon a passport after they have inspected it and 
found it correct. 



Notes 1 47 

98. Carbonari. An Italian secret society, organized 
in 1820, which was endeavoring to free Italy from 
the grasp of Austria. 

100. Spielbei-g. An Austrian prison. 

1 01. Makes the signal. Points out Luigi to the 
police. 

Scene III. — 6. Lucius Junius. Lucius Junius 
Brutus led the revolt which resulted in the expulsion 
of the Tarquins and the establishment of the Roman 
republic (509 b. a). His name occurs naturally to 
Luigi, as the latter tries the echo, siilce the young 
patriot is contemplating a similar deed to that which 
won immortal renown for Brutus. 

14. Old Franz. Francis I., Emperor of Austria. 

19. Pellicos. Silvio Pellico (1 788-1 854), an Italian 
patriot and a member of the Carbonari. He was 
arrested and confined eleven years in the prisons of 
Santa Margherita in Milan, of I Piombi at Venice, 
and finally in the Spielberg. His celebrated book, 
" Le Mie Prigioni," gives a history of his long im- 
prisonment. Pellico was set at liberty in 1830, 
and devoted the remainder of his life to literary 
work. 

30. They visit night by night. That is, in 
dreams. 

55. I go this evening. See Interlude ii. 90 et seq. 
The police have been misinformed. 



148 Notes 

99. Coppice. A copse ; wood of small growth. 

122. Andrea, Pier, Gualtier. Former conspirators 
against the tyrannical Austrian government. 

135. How first the Austrians got these provinces. 
Austria gained by conquest the greater part of North- 
ern Italy in 181 3. The Congress of Vienna after- 
ward made repeated concessions, until by 181 5 all the 
provinces fell under Austrian control. 

138. The treaty. Made by the Congress of 
Vienna. 

148. "/ am the bright and morning star." Cf. 
Revelation, xxii. 16. 

150. The gift of the morning star. Cf. Revelation, 
ii. 28. 

151. Chiara. Luigi's betrothed. 

156. Leading his revel. It is unusual to find June 
personified as masculine. 

163. The Titian at Treviso. An altar-piece by 
Titian in the Cathedral of San Pietro. Treviso is an 
Italian town, seventeen miles from Venice. 

164. A king lived long ago. A song first published 
in 1835. Numerous alterations were made when it 
was incorporated in " Pippa Passes" in 1841. 

168. Disparting. Intensive form of parting. 
172. Got. Begotten. 

174. Age with its bane. The edition of 1835 has : 
" Age with its pine." 



Notes 149 

184. Haled. Dragged, hauled. Cf. Luke xii. 58 : 
" Lest he hale thee to the judge." 

189. And somett7r.es clmig, etc. The following 
four lines were inserted in 1841. This verse then 
read: 

" Sometimes there clung about his feet." 

209. Pytho7i. The monster serpent slain by Apollo. 
He lived in the caves of Mt. Parnassus, and guarded 
the oracle of Delphi. Subsequently came to be used 
of any dragon, and finally of any violent, dangerous 
tyrant. 

Interlude III. — 7. Fig-peckers. A species of 
bird that lives upon figs. 

8. Lampreys. A kind of fish resembling an eel 
in shape, and having a circular suctorial mouth with 
teeth on its inner surface. It is still eaten commonly 
in many parts of Europe. Breganze-wt7ie. Wine 
made at Breganza, an Italian village, twelve miles 
north of Vicenza. 

19. Deuza7is. A kind of apple. Jimetings. A 
variety of early apple. Leather-coat. A tough-skinned 
apple. The name is frequently applied to the golden 
russet. Cf. "2 Henry IV." v. 3. 44: "There's a 
dish of leather-coats for you." 

55. Ortolans. An Old World bunting, a small 
singing bird found in Europe, considered a great 



150 Notes 

table-delicacy. Cf. Browning's Prologue to " Ferish- 
tah's Fancies " : 

" Pray, reader, have you eaten ortolans 
Ever in Italy ? " etc. 

57. Pole7ita. A porridge made of corn meal. It 
forms the principal food of the poorer class of 
Italians. 

Scene IV. — 4. Benedict*? benedicatur. A form of 
blessing. 

10. Messina. A city and seaport of Sicily, having 
many fine buildings and one of the best harbors in 
the Mediterranean. Its climate, while excellent, is 
extremely hot in midsummer, as the Bishop inti- 
mates. 

1 1 . Assujnption Day. A Church festival celebrated 
on the 15 th of August to commemorate the miracu- 
lous ascent into heaven of the Virgin Mary. 

20. Ascoli, Fermo, and Fossumbruno . Towns of 
Central Italy which are important ecclesiastical 
centres. 

44. Jules, a foreign sculptor. See Scene II. 
above. 

54. The very perfection. One of Browning's favor- 
ite doctrines is to the effect that in attaining any form 
of perfection on earth, one encounters danger of ulti- 



Notes 151 

mate spiritual defeat. Aspiration, endless battles 
with apparent failure, are more to be desired than 
whatever kind of self-satisfied accomplishment. Cf. 
" Andrea del Sarto " : 

" A man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's a heaven for ? . . . " 

6$. Correggio. Antonio Allegri da Correggio(i494- 
1534), one of the most famous of Italian painters. 
His reputation rests chiefly on his frescoes in the 
church of San Giovanni and those on the dome of 
the cathedral at Parma. 

92. Podere. A farm or small landed property; a 
manor. 

1 01. Forli. A walled city of Central Italy at the 
foot of the Apennines, about forty miles southeast of 
Bologna. 

104. Cesetia. An episcopal city situated between 
Bologna and Ancona, and about twelve miles from 
Forli. 

128. Soldo. The Italian "penny"; a copper coin 
equivalent in value to the French sou. 

134. Millet-cake. A kind of cake made from a 
variety of small grain which grows in Italy. It is 
eaten almost wholly by the peasantry. 

141. Poderi. Plural of podere. See 1. 92, above. 

226 Begun operations already. See Interlude ii. 



152 Notes 

253. The seven and one. " The Seven Stars " is a 
popular term for the Pleiades. Rolfe thinks the one 
may be " any « bright particular star ' in the heavens," 
but it is suggested in the notes to the Clarke and Porter 
edition that " the ' one ' is probably Aldebaran (the fol- 
lower), so called because it follows upon the Pleiades." 

264. Miserere mei, Domine. " Have mercy on me, 
O Lord ! " 

Epilogue. — 2. Dray. Nest ; usually that of the 
squirrel. 

5. Hedge-shrew. Field-mouse. Lob-worm. Re- 
sembles an earth-worm, though somewhat larger. 
Lives in the sand of seashores, and is much used for 
bait. Spelled also lug-worm. 

70. Brenta. A navigable river of North Italy, 
which rises in the Tyrol. 

88. Mavis, 7nerle, and throstle. The mavis is the 
English song-thrush ; the merle is the English black- 
bird ; the th?'Ostle belongs to the thrush family, and 
by the " Standard Dictionary " is also identified with 
the song-thrush {turdus musicus). 

91. H owlet. Owlet. 

92. Cha7itry. Private chapel. 

94. Full complines. An ecclesiastical term: the 
last of the canonical hours, or the last service of com- 
mon prayer for the day, following vespers. Plural of 
complin or compline. 



Notes 153 

96. Cowls and twats. The poet has explained 
(through Doctor Furnivall) that he obtained the word 
twats, referring to a part of a nun's attire, from the 
Royalist jingle called " Vanity of Vanities " inspired 
by the picture of Sir Harry Vane : 

" 'Tis said they will give him a cardinal's hat : 
They sooner will give him an old nun's twat." 

" The word struck me," said Browning, " as a dis- 
tinctive part of a nun's attire that might fitly pair 
off with the cowl appropriated to a monk." 



BROWNING'S LIFE AND WRITINGS 

A CHRONOLOGY 



1812. 
Robert Browning born, May 7th, Parish of St. 
Giles, Camberwell, London. 

Baptized, June 14th, in Congregational Chapel, 
Walworth. 

1825. 
Obtains Shelley's poems, which have a formative 
influence on his genius. 

1826. 
Leaves private school, where he has spent several 
years, and studies at home with a tutor. 

1829-30. 
Attends lectures at University College, London. 

1833. 
Pauline published. 

*55 



156 Brownings Life and Writings 

1833-34. 
Travels in Russia and Italy. 
Returns to Camberwell. 

1835- 
Paracelsus published. 

The Browning family move from Camberwell to 
Hatcham. 

Browning makes the acquaintance of Macready. 

1835-36. 
Contributes several poems to the Monthly Repos- 
itory. 

1837. 
Strafford published. 

Strafford produced at Covent Garden Theatre, 
May 1 st. 

1838. 
First Italian journey. 

1840. 
Sordello published. 

1 841. 
Publication of Bells and Pomegranates begun. 
Pippa Passes published. 



Brownings Life and Writings 157 

1842. 
King Victor and King Charles published. 
Dramatic Lyrics published. 

Writes Pied Piper of Hamelin for Mr. Mac- 
ready's young son, Willy. 

1843. 
The Return of the Druses published. 
A Blot in the ''Scutcheon published. 
A Blot in the ''Scutcheon produced at the Theatre 
Royal, Drury Lane, February 1 ith. 

1844. 
Visit to Italy. 
Colombe^s Birthday published. 

1844-45. 
Contributes six poems to Hood^s Magazine. 

1845. 
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics published. 

1846. 
Luria published. 
A SouVs Tragedy published. 
Married Elizabeth Barrett, September 12th. 

1847. 
Moves to Italy, residing at Casa Guidi, Florence. 



158 Brownings Life and Writings 

1849. 
Poems (first collected edition) published in two 
volumes. 

Birth of Robert Barrett Browning, March 9th. 
Death of the poet's mother. 

1850. 
Christ?nas-Eve and Easter-Day published. 

1851. 
The Brownings visit England, and spend the fol- 
lowing winter in Paris with Robert Browning, the 
elder. 

1852. 
Introductory essay to the [spurious] Letters of 
Percy Bysshe Shelley published. 

The Brownings pass the summer in London. Re- 
turn to Florence the following winter. 

1853. 
Colombo s Birthday produced at the Haymarket 
Theatre by Miss Helen Faucit, April 25th. 

1855. 
Men a7id Women published. 

1855-56. 
Resides in London and Paris. 



Brownings Life and Writings 159 

1858. 
A trip to Normandy. 

1 861. 
Death of Mrs. Browning at Casa Guidi, June 29th. 

1863. 
Poetical Works published in three volumes. 

1864. 
Three poems contributed to The Atlantic Monthly. 
Dramatis Personce published. 

1866. 
Death of Browning's father at Paris. 

1867. 
Receives degree of M. A. from Oxford, and is 
made honorary Fellow of Balliol College. 

1868. 
Poetical Works published in six volumes 

1868-69. 
The Ring and the Book published. 
A tour in Scotland, and visit to Lady Ashburton 
at Loch Luichart Lodge. 

1870. 
Residence at St.-Aubin, France. 



160 Browning s Life and Writings 

1871. 
Balaustian's Adventure published in August. 
Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Savior of Society, 
published in December. 

Herve Riel published in Cornhill Magazine. 

1872. 
Fifine at the Fair published. 
Publishes a volume of selections from his works. 

1872-73. 
Spends part of each year at St.-Aubin. 

1873. 
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country j or, Turf and 
Towers published. 

1874. 
Visit to Antwerp. 

1875. 
Aristophanes'* Apology published in April. 
The Inn Album published in November. 
Visit to Villers, on coast of Normandy. 
Nominated to the office of Lord Rector of the 
University of Glasgow. 

1876. 
Pacchiarotto and Other Poems published. 
Visit to the Isle of Arran. 



Browning's Life and Writings 161 

1877. 

The Agamemnon of JEschylus published. 

Spends the autumn with his sister at La Saisiaz, a 
villa among the mountains near Geneva. 

Receives formal offer of the Lord-Rectorship of 
the University of St. Andrews. 

1878. 
La Saisiaz : The Two Poets of Croisic published. 
Revisits Italy. 

1879. 
Dramatic Idyls published. 

Elected President of the New Shakespeare Society. 
Receives degree of LL. D. from Cambridge. 

1880. 
Dramatic Idyls, Second Series, published. 
Publishes a second series of selections from his 
works. 

1881. 

London Browning Society holds its first meeting, 
October 25 th. 

1882. 
Receives degree of D. C. L. from Oxford. 

1883. 
Jocoseria published. 



1 62 Browning 's Life and Writings 

1884. 
Receives the degree of LL. D. from the University 
of Edinburgh. 

FerishtaWs Fancies published. 
Again declines to stand for the Lord-Rectorship 
of St. Andrews. 

1885. 
Purchases a residence in Venice, the Palazzo 
Manzoni, and returns to England. 

1886. 
Spends the autumn in Wales. 
Accepts the post of foreign correspondent to the 
Royal Academy. 

1887. 

Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in 
Their Day published. 

1888. 

Returns to Italy. 

1888-89. 
Poetical Works published in sixteen volumes. 

1889. 
Asolando : Fancies and Facts published. 
Robert Browning died at Venice, December 12th; 
buried in Westminster Abbey, December 31st. 



